Ice

Wed
21 Jan
2015

After a lot of con­side­ra­ti­on, the (preli­mi­na­ry) decis­i­on has been made to set a sou­thwes­ter­ly cour­se, direct­ly into the Ross Sea. The ice seems to have ope­ned up along that rou­te in the last cou­ple of days, so it is worth a try. Nobo­dy can know what will actual­ly hap­pen, it is real­ly quite exci­ting now, tru­ly expe­di­ti­on style. The Ross Sea is a chall­enge this year. It will be very inte­res­t­ing to hear what the Spi­rit of Enderby will encoun­ter, they are now sai­ling south in the wes­tern Ross Sea, along the tra­di­tio­nal rou­te near the 180th degree of lon­gi­tu­de. Ide­al­ly, that could beco­me our exit rou­te. Into the ice is one thing. Out again ano­ther. We would quite like to get out of it again, not just even­tual­ly, but at a given time. We are not the Fram (no, I am not thin­king of Hur­tig­ru­ten now). A shame, actual­ly … but we have all boo­ked our flights back home from New Zea­land.

May­be we are get­ting in the area of the Bay of Wha­les in some days. This is whe­re Amund­sen went along­side the shelf ice edge more than 100 years ago, built his hut Fram­heim and went straight to the south pole after the win­ter, a few weeks befo­re Scott went the­re as well. Fram­heim was on the schelf ice and does of cour­se not exist any­mo­re, but how gre­at would it be to get the­re any­way? May­be. We shall see, we shall see … (as Amund­sen said).

Many small, open drift ice fields today, smal­ler tabu­lar ice­bergs every here and the­re, with a lot of open water. Very good, we are making good pro­gress now. And dozens of Snow pet­rels – ani­mals that are well sym­bo­li­zing Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, as the Emper­or pen­gu­in. Less famous, but some bird­wat­chers would give a lot to see just one Snow pet­rel. And we have had dozens around the ship today, seve­ral times.