#myboat

This is not the kind of place anyone can gaurantee a return from. And sometimes, it becomes startlingly easy to forget that- until something throws it into sharp relief.

The trip itself is successful. Valuable data is gathered, and nobody is injured, at least not drastically. The sickness that takes Robert McCoy upon his return is a matter of poor luck, nothing more.

Were they elsewhere in the world, he would have had a chance. Not much of one- there is a surgery, successful in the past few years, when carried out in an operating room with instruments as clean as technology can make them.

Not when carried out here. But when your captain tells you to try, even though there is near-nill chance of success... you do.

And on the last day of his life, just as on the first, Robert McCoy falls asleep in his mother's arms.

On a cool spring morning, the relief ship is first sighted, and the company explodes into glee. This means resupply, security until at least the summer, new faces, news- a hundred things that make them feel like they're not alone in the world, the only living humans on the globe.

It also means that some of their number will be leaving.

Violet, for one. Ibrahim has done right by her, and they've privately exchanged vows, even if nobody back in Civilisation will know that. She'll wait for him in Christchurch, and has left detailed copies of her notes that someone (probably not him) will carry on her work.

Next, Aodhán (left, standing) and Cornelia (right, blue). Less specialised but no less of a loss. Aodhán began to crumble after the death of his closest friend in the outbreak, and is being given the grace of being invalided out, and Cornelia has been ill on and off for months. She was a gamble to begin with, aboard with some smoothing of the way by her brother.

Events so far:

we left port and resupplied in New Zealand for the full voyage.

various of chaos as the boat settled into routines

We arrive in the artic and navigate through the leads as shackleton did.

we found a safe harbour for winter, and settled there as the freeze came.

Polar night fell.

The solid ice enabled hunting, supplementing supplies with fresh meat.

In the mid-autumn, an outbreak of dysentery took 3 lives.

christmas was celebrated with double rations and a pudding stowed awasy for the occasion.

Background: This is a playthrough using all of my starglight express sims. I made 24 based off the Wembley 2024 revival, and a couple OCs.

They are on a polar expedition ship loosely based off of the RRS discovery, and they are, as of now, in a safe harbour for the winter. They plan to stay there for a few months, then land an exploration party and return to the sims uk by the end of 1903. Momma is the captain. they have the best technology of the time at their disposal, so their ship is a sailing ship with auxillary steam engines and a reinforced hull for breaking through ice. they're provisioned for the voyage, with a calculated amount of food to last them its duration + extra for emergencies. They also have several live goats aboard for milk and occasional meat. They had an initial roster of 24, reduced now to 21.

Core Mods: Healthcare redux (for diseases), Underworlds (for polar night), Daybreak (for midnight sun, later on), and a handful of light RPO mods (mostly for the ability to woohoo in more places, and for the woohoo drive- I didn't initially include this but it's turning out chaotic)

Gameplay choices: The lot is off-the-grid so there's constant watching of power and water, and has the simple living lot trait to make sure they can only cook what they have the ingreidents for. I'm playing in the world from snowy exscape, where the snow never melts.