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Yearly Archives: 2015 − News & Stories


Kap Evans

Cape Evans, sacred ground of ant­ar­c­tic histo­ry and a stun­nin­gly beau­tiful place in this kind of wea­ther. Base of Scott’s last expe­di­ti­on, with the Ter­ra Nova. The cross is a memo­ri­al to Spen­cer-Smith, Hay­wood and Mack­in­tosh. Now I am sure you have all done your ant­ar­c­tic home­work so you will know during which expe­di­ti­on the­se 3 men were here and died ..? Yes, it was of cour­se during the Auro­ra-expe­di­ti­on, the logi­sti­cal coun­ter­pie­ce of Shackleton’s Endu­rance-expe­di­ti­on. It isn’t quite true when it is said that Sir Ernest always brought all of his men back home ali­ve.

The main focus of atten­ti­on was, of cour­se, the famous hut of Scott’s last expe­di­ti­on. A time machi­ne that takes you a cen­tu­ry back into the heroic days of ant­ar­c­tic explo­ra­ti­on. The smell of seal blub­ber and hay for the ponies is still in the air. The hut seems to be rea­dy to wel­co­me the explo­rers back at any time, who are just out­side and may be for some time. A sacred place.

Mount Ere­bus is towe­ring behind the hut in all its sple­ndor today, gre­at views over the bar­ren hills of black vol­ca­nic rocks at Cape Evans. The­re is still fast ice to the south, ice­bergs fro­zen in bet­ween islands: Inac­ces­si­ble Island and Razor­back Islands, all of them important land­marks for Scott and his men. And of cour­se for Shack­le­ton during the Nim­rod days (1907-09).

Memorial cross for the 3 men who died during the Aurora expedition, Shackleton's Ross Sea party

Mount Ere­bus

Tal­king about Mount Ere­bus … 🙂
 
 
 

e1_Mount-Erebus_27Jan15_030

Cape Cro­zier

The day could have had a very ear­ly start with a Zodiac crui­se at Cape Cro­zier, whe­re the Ross Ice Shelf meets Ross Island. But the wind was screa­ming around the ship, zodiacs were not even a remo­te opti­on. Nevert­hel­ess it was inte­res­t­ing to have seen the famous cape, even from a distance. Next to the scenic and ani­ma­li­stic impres­si­ons, it is the „Worst jour­ney in the World“ (sple­ndid­ly nar­ra­ted by Aps­ley Cher­ry-Gar­rard) which made Cape Cro­zier famous. I have to sum­ma­ri­ze this wild sto­ry in a few sen­ten­ces, but not now. Now I have to watch out. Mount Ere­bus should come into view soon, and the Trans­ant­ar­c­tic Moun­ta­ins are alre­a­dy on the hori­zon. We are hea­ding for Cape Royds and Cape Evans now. Fin­gers crossed that it will work out well.

d9_Cape-Crozier_27Jan15_33

Ross Ice Shelf

Too soon after the oppor­tu­ni­ty see­med to have come yes­ter­day after­noon to admi­re the Ross Ice Shelf from the heli­c­op­ter per­spec­ti­ve, the wea­ther win­dow clo­sed again, way befo­re ever­y­bo­dy had had the plea­su­re. Which can stretch the ner­ves a bit. It is too easy to for­get that safe­ty comes first. Few would ques­ti­on that from a distance.

But today, the famous ice shelf pre­sen­ted its­elf in a most plea­sant way, in the suns­hi­ne and with a few deco­ra­ti­ve clouds, so we could com­ple­te our flight­see­ing in the best con­di­ti­ons. And it was worth it!

d8_Ross-Ice-Shelf_26Jan15_180

It is good and important to have star­ted our acti­vi­ties in the Ross Sea now. Cabin fever had star­ted to make its­elf felt here and the­re.

Bay of Wha­les

The ice con­di­ti­ons over the last bit have been see­mingly para­dox, but are actual­ly quite nor­mal: quite a stretch of open water bet­ween the sea ice fur­ther north and the Ross Ice Shelf, which is whe­re we are now. So we could make good speed of about 11 knots, until the „gre­at bar­ri­er“ came into view this mor­ning, the fore­said ice shelf, an end­less wall of ice of a height of 40-50 meters. The Ross Ice Shelf is one of the most remar­kab­le places on Earth, it does not real­ly compa­re to any­thing else, other than the other ant­ar­c­tic ice shelfs, but how often do you get to see them ..? I will lea­ve it up to James Clark Ross to give a descrip­ti­on of the Ross Ice Shelf, as he dis­co­ver­ed it on 28th Janu­ary 1841:

„As we approa­ched the land (Ross Island) under all stud­ding-sails, we per­cei­ved a low white line exten­ding from its eas­tern extre­me point as far as the eye could dis­cern to the east­ward. It pre­sen­ted an extra­or­di­na­ry appearance, gra­du­al­ly incre­asing in height, as we got nea­rer to it, and pro­ving at length to be a per­pen­di­cu­lar cliff of ice, bet­ween one hundred and fif­ty and two hundred feet abo­ve the level of the sea, per­fect­ly flat and level at the top, and wit­hout any fis­su­res or pro­mont­ories on its even sea­ward face. What was bey­ond it we could not ima­gi­ne; … Mee­ting with such an obs­truc­tion was a gre­at dis­ap­point­ment to us all, for we had alre­a­dy, in expec­ta­ti­on, pas­sed far bey­ond the eight­ieth degree, and had even appoin­ted a ren­dez­vous the­re, in case of the ships acci­den­tal­ly sepa­ra­ting. It was, howe­ver, an obs­truc­tion of such a cha­rac­ter as to lea­ve no doubt upon my mind as to our future pro­cee­dings, for we might with equal chan­ce of suc­cess try to sail through the Cliffs of Dover, as pene­tra­te such a mass.“

d6_Ross-Iceshelf_25Jan15_207

Cars­ten Borchgre­vink was the second one to visit the Ross Ice Shelf after Ross. He lan­ded on a lower part in ear­ly 1900, after his win­tering at Cape Ada­re, and noti­ced that the ice cliff had shifted its posi­ti­on 30 miles to the south. A day’s hike took Borchgre­vink to 78°50’S, which was a fur­thest south that las­ted until Decem­ber 1902.

In 1911, Amund­sen lan­ded on the Ice Shelf in the Bay of Wha­les, a wide embay­ment at 164°W, and put Fram­heim up, the win­tering base. Fram­heim was at 78°30’S. We have now been at 78°32,5’S/164°54’W, which is 11 miles west of Amundsen’s Fram­heim, but, what is more inte­res­t­ing, 2.5 miles fur­ther south – and we were obvious­ly still at sea, still a mile or so to the ice shelf. Today, Amund­sen would have built Fram­heim seve­ral miles clo­ser to the pole. He would cer­tain­ly have lik­ed that. This is not much of a retre­at con­side­ring more than a cen­tu­ry has gone sin­ce then. It is said that the part of the ice shelf whe­re Fram­heim was stan­ding bro­ke off and drifted out into the oce­an in 1928.

Snow show­ers were threa­tening to take the visi­bi­li­ty, so a heli­c­op­ter landing on the shelf ice as Don had plan­ned was can­cel­led, so we are now sai­ling with a wes­ter­ly cour­se, towards Ross Island (Mount Ere­bus) and McMur­do Sound, eager­ly awai­ting what the next days may bring.

Ice

The Ant­ar­c­tic is living up to its repu­ta­ti­on of being a con­ti­nent of ice this year. Well, it does not exact­ly come as a big sur­pri­se that the seas around Ant­ar­c­ti­ca have ice. But it is inde­ed a hea­vy ice year, and it would be nice if the ice charts were a litt­le bit more pre­cise and relia­ble. We are now in the nor­the­as­tern Ross Sea, 250 nau­ti­cal miles nor­the­ast of the Bay of Wha­les, and accor­ding to the satel­li­te-deri­ved ice chart we should have most­ly open water here. But one drift ice field is fol­lo­wed by the next one, and even though the avera­ge ice cover is no more than 2/10 to 4/10, we do have den­se fields with lar­ger, stron­ger floes quite regu­lar­ly and need to maneou­vre around them or careful­ly break through them. Not only is this a lot of hard work for the Cap­tain (I don’t think he has left the bridge at all last night) and his guys, but it also slows us down con­sider­a­b­ly.

Yes­ter­day evening, a snow show­er decreased the visi­bi­li­ty to almost zero, and when the curtain went up again, the ice was pret­ty den­se in most direc­tions. A first heli­c­op­ter ice rec­ce flight cover­ed 60 miles (nau­ti­cal) in our gene­ral sou­thwes­ter­ly direc­tion, achie­ving infor­ma­ti­on about a navigab­le rou­te, but not dis­co­ve­ring gene­ral­ly open water. We are eager­ly awai­ting the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment.

d2_ice-flight_23Jan15_071

But the way is the goal (does that trans­la­te ..?). The won­derful world of the ice, inclu­ding smal­ler tabu­lar bergs every here and the­re, was lying around the ship last night, in the soft light of the ant­ar­c­tic mid­night sun. Emper­or pen­gu­ins on the ice every now and then. The ama­zing beau­ty of the col­dest end of the world.

The Ross seal

I might just wri­te one sen­tence this time: we have seen a Ross seal. But some more sen­ten­ces may be neces­sa­ry to explain why this comes pret­ty clo­se to a real jack­pot.

If you tra­vel to Spits­ber­gen, you will most likely want to see a polar bear. That is easy. Only tho­se who real­ly have done their home­work might say: I’d rather see an Ivo­ry gull or a Grey phalar­ope. That is a bit less easy.

This here is simi­lar. If you take a trip to Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, most likely you want to see pen­gu­ins. And of cour­se I don’t want to put down a love­ly encoun­ter with a curious Gen­too pen­gu­in, an expe­ri­ence that has made count­less visi­tors to the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la smi­le for more than just a short moment. Or the Alba­tross, about which Robert Cush­man Mur­phy said „I now belong to the hig­her cult of mor­tals, for I have seen the alba­tross“. That may be taking it just a litt­le bit too far, but an expo­sure to such an ama­zing crea­tu­re may actual­ly make you feel that way.

The rarest ani­mal in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca is the Ross seal. After dozens of trips down here through 14 years, inclu­ding the Ross Sea trip 2 years ago, I have now seen my first Ross seal today. And this includes of cour­se ever­y­bo­dy on board, also most of my col­le­agues, who all have count­less ant­ar­c­tic sea­sons behind them. I belie­ve that Don, our fearless expe­di­ti­on lea­der, came to Ant­ar­c­ti­ca for the first time with Maw­son. It is a while ago. And even he dou­bled his num­ber of Ross seal expe­ri­en­ces with that sight­ing.

A very rough esti­ma­te of the „glo­bal“ popu­la­ti­on is some­thing near 130,000. That is not much. That is, actual­ly, very litt­le, con­side­ring the immense are­as this popu­la­ti­on of a midd­le-sized city is spread over. Theo­re­ti­cal­ly, you can find them ever­y­whe­re around Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, even on the coast of the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la. But I don’t know anyo­ne who has ever actual­ly seen one the­re. The Ross sea, that sounds like the Ross seal, you will eit­her see it here or not at all. To find this tre­asu­red spe­ci­es, you will have to take this long, long trip down here. And when our Ross seal then final­ly slid past the ship on his ice floe, pro­ba­b­ly hap­py to be on his own again, ever­y­bo­dy had a wide smi­le and more than one men­tio­ned to me that this trip is now alre­a­dy a suc­cess. Well, of cour­se we are loo­king for­ward to more, wha­te­ver the next days will bring, but this is defi­ni­te­ly a very signi­fi­cant ent­ry in the log.

By the way, the sight­ing of both the first Emper­or pen­gu­in and the Ross seal have to be cre­di­ted to Nick, a sharp-eyed fel­low pas­sen­ger from the Net­her­lands. Well done! (I feel I should add that we gui­des were busy with the dry-run of the heli­c­op­ter ope­ra­ti­ons).

c9_Ross-Seal_22Jan15_056

The Ross seal is the smal­lest of all ant­ar­c­tic seals, and quite pecu­li­ar with regards to its body shape with the unpro­por­tio­nal­ly strong neck and the stripes in on the same part of its body. It is easy to distin­gu­ish, as soon as you have got a reasonable view of it. And nobo­dy nee­ded bino­cu­lars any­mo­re when the ship was near her (his?) litt­le ice floe.

Emper­or

Of cour­se you are not coming wit­hout hopes and wis­hes on a big trip like this. And of cour­se it will be safe to say that a num­ber of the­se wis­hes are shared by all of us here. Anyo­ne here who does not want to see an Emper­or pen­gu­in? Unli­kely. Cle­ar­ly, both chan­ces and exci­te­ments were rising as soon as we had the first bits of drift ice in view. Bino­cu­lars are curr­ent­ly in fre­quent use here.

Yes­ter­day evening then the big moment – the first of seve­ral! – some in the bar, others in the cine­ma, but some tire­less obser­vers on the bridge. Only moments later, all of us out on the open deck, in the cold wind, to admi­re the Emper­or in his very realm. A lonely, juve­ni­le Emper­or, the yel­low on the sides of his neck not yet real­ly yel­low, rather whitish-grey­ish, stan­ding the­re on his litt­le ice floe.

c7_Amundsen-Sea_21Jan15_29

Always gre­at to see how such a pre­cious moment lifts the spi­rits imme­dia­te­ly.

Ice

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).

c6_Amundsen-Sea_21Jan15_14

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.

Ice

We have been kee­ping an eye on the ice chart for days with quite some exci­ti­ment. What appears like some colourful squa­re cen­ti­me­t­res on paper is hundreds of miles of drift ice in real life, cove­ring much of the Ross Sea. Yel­low is not vit­amin-rich lemon, but half open water. Pur­ple is not blueber­ry, but a very den­se pack ice cover, toug­her than a cher­ry stone and abso­lut­e­ly ine­di­ble.

In the arc­tic, the sea ice is shrin­king rapidly. In the Ant­ar­c­tic, it is brea­king records. The­re is a lot of ice in the Ross Sea this year.

The ice is the focus of ever­y­bo­dies atten­ti­on here on Ort­eli­us. We are all regu­lar­ly exami­ning the ice­chart, fol­lo­wing the deve­lo­p­ment, dis­cus­sing what all the colours may mean for us. The degree of expe­ri­ence that goes into the­se dis­cus­sions is varia­ble, and so is the pati­ence that Shack­le­ton iden­ti­fied as a polar traveller’s most important qua­li­ty. The­se ice charts are always rough and some­ti­mes ama­zin­gly mis­lea­ding, and even the satel­li­tes don’t know what will hap­pen over the next days.

Eiskarte_19Jan2015

Tal­king about Shack­le­ton. It was on 20th Janu­ary 1914 that the Endu­rance got stuck in the ice of the Wed­dell Sea. That is 100 years ago today.

So we are eager­ly awai­ting the deve­lo­p­ment over the next days. The first ice floes are drif­ting around the ship. A beau­tiful view in the suns­hi­ne.

Amund­sen Sea

18th-20th Janu­ary 2015 – As Shack­le­ton said, the most important cha­rac­ter fea­ture for every polar explo­rer is pati­ence. Now we are not tal­king about spen­ding a long ant­ar­c­tic win­ter tog­e­ther in a litt­le hut, squeezed around a far too small table with per­ma­nent dark­ness and long bliz­zards out­side. But some days at sea are enough to make the inner clock turn a bit slower. Some may have dif­fi­cul­ties with it, but I think, most of us are actual­ly enjoy­ing it. At home we are always on to some­thing, always online, 24/7 workloads, per­ma­nent stress. How often do you have the luxu­ry to watch waves for hours on end, wai­ting for the occa­sio­nal Cape or Giant storm pet­rel – they have beco­me a bit rare the­se days – pas­sing by? One of the­se days, even a migh­ty Wan­de­ring alba­tross was seen during the ear­ly mor­ning hours. Far south of the con­ver­gence, but the­re is no way too long for the­se eter­nal riders of the sou­thern winds.

Still, every day is dif­fe­rent. One day, the wind was strong enough to be dis­agreeable for some, one day was grey, the out­side world hid­den behind a curtain of snow. One day, it was after lea­ving Peter I Island, we had pods of Orcas seve­ral times, and today ear­ly mor­ning, the­re were Min­ke wha­le backs brea­king through the waves, cat­ching some rays of the rising sun.

b9_Amundsen-Sea_17Jan15_68

Of cour­se we are having a series of lec­tures and films. Micha­el has explai­ned the various sub­ty­pes of Orcas, and Vic­to­ria is tel­ling the sto­ries from the ear­lier years of explo­ra­ti­on. Sto­ries? Heroic adven­tures! The­se are only a few examp­les, we have got quite a ran­ge of stuff bet­ween us. But I have to rave on a litt­le bit about Vic­to­ria Salem’s histo­ry talks. They should beco­me a TV series. I am not a TV jun­kie, but I would turn it on. High fre­quen­cy rhe­to­ri­cal arti­stry, every see­mingly casu­al sen­tence a punch line with high-gra­de histo­ry fla­vour. 40 minu­tes that feel like at least one well-rese­ar­ched histo­ry book. Loo­king for­ward to more 🙂

Bel­lings­hau­sen Sea

15th-17th Janu­ary 2015 – From here on we real­ly start our ant­ar­c­tic Odys­seey, the see­mingly end­less distances around a good part of the con­ti­nent. Many hundred nau­ti­cal miles over open sea. The coast remains far away and out of sight, and so does the pack ice. This is how it should be. If we start making end­less cur­ves and bends alre­a­dy now, then we will never get any­whe­re. Time our most pre­cious resour­ce now.

And it is pas­sing quick­ly. Some­ti­mes with a bree­ze, some­ti­mes wit­hout, but it is gene­ral­ly with quite calm seas the­se first days across the Bel­lings­hau­sen Sea are going by. When the wind is blo­wing, many like to be out on the open deck, becau­se then many of the beau­tiful Cape Pet­rels are gli­ding around the ship, in see­mingly end­less num­bers. It is pro­ba­b­ly a limi­t­ed num­ber of indi­vi­du­als that are always coming back in cir­cles, visi­ting the ship every cou­ple of minu­tes, but it must still be some hundreds of them. Some­ti­mes, they will sit on the water for a moment, dip their head into the waves and then take off again with a few run­ning steps on the water, the maneou­vre that has given the pet­rels their com­mon name, after St. Peter from the bible, who also tried to walk over water, slight­ly less suc­cessful than his boss. In con­trast to St. Peter, the pet­rels don’t sink into the water, but are soon fly­ing up in the ski­es again, with some more krill in the s tomach. I have never seen krill in the sto­mach from a moving ship. If I was depen­ding on fin­ding krill, I would long have star­ved to death. But what looks like a desert of water to us, is a rich table for the­se sea­birds.

b6_Bellingshausen-Sea_15Jan15_27

The super-remo­te island of Peter I remains hid­den behind clouds and waves. We spend a few hours near this now almost invi­si­ble island. Once, we put a zodiac on the water to find out what we actual­ly alre­a­dy know: the sea is too rough for us to board the zodiacs. Every few seconds the plat­form of the gang­way is eit­her han­gin high abo­ve the water or dis­ap­pears insi­de a wave. From the boat you can see what it is real­ly like, it looks less dra­ma­tic from deck. This does sim­ply not work, not today, not in the­se con­di­ti­ons. So we wave good­bye to this lone­so­me, deso­la­te island and con­ti­nue our jour­ney west­wards. We can’t do any­thing against wind and ice, human desi­re is not­hing against the forces of natu­re. This can occa­sio­nal­ly be dis­ap­poin­ting and dif­fi­cult to accept.

Crys­tal Sound

The well-known sounds and islands of the cen­tral Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la, whe­re we almost always know a shel­te­red place some­whe­re behind a cor­ner, is now behind us, and we are hea­ding into the more unknown. Well, not real­ly unknown, but much less of a well-trod­den path than we have been on so far. More dif­fi­cult ter­rain at the same time: more open, less shel­te­red, more ice, no small bays giving pro­tec­tion, lon­ger distances.

It beca­me clear quite ear­ly on that the Fish Islands didn’t want us. At least ear­ly enough so we did not have to set the alarm clocks for 4 a.m. A second attempt during the later mor­ning came to an end once we had rea­ched a mas­si­ve array of huge ice­bergs, guar­ding the Fish Iclands like giant ice demons. They cle­ar­ly did not have any inten­ti­on of let­ting us through, so we snea­k­ed out again to try our luck else­whe­re. The Fish Islands are just a num­ber of small sker­ries, just big enough to sup­port a popu­la­ti­on of Adé­lie pen­gu­ins and Blue-eyed shags. We would find ano­ther inte­res­t­ing spot for us else­whe­re.

Detail­le Island was to be the next desti­na­ti­on, but first of all we had to cross the magi­cal line that sepa­ra­tes high lati­tu­des from even hig­her lati­tu­des: the south polar cir­cle. You can cross its nor­t­hern equi­va­lent con­ve­ni­ent­ly by train, bicy­cle, car or bus, or in a pla­ne, wit­hout get­ting to know about it. Here in the south, the club of tho­se who have crossed the line is far more exclu­si­ve. That was cle­ar­ly some­thing that had to be cele­bra­ted duly, and our fearless lea­der Don had very distinc­ti­ve ide­as of how this was to be done. May­be an old ritu­al from New Zea­land? Who knows. Any­way, some of us loo­ked like Mao­ri chiefs after having com­ple­ted the pro­ce­du­res duly. Well, almost.

b5_Crystal-Sound_14Jan15_08

Again, natu­re had set her migh­ty ice guar­di­ans bet­ween us and the pro­mi­sed land. Not as gigan­tic as ear­lier today, but more than enough ice­bergs, ber­gy bits and sea ice floes to keep us from rea­ching Detail­le Island and its his­to­ri­cal hut. So we went into the Zodiacs and out into the ice and enjoy­ed it great­ly. Blue colours of all shades, bizar­re shapes, Cra­bea­ter seals res­t­ing on ice. A fine fare­well to the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la. Then, we went out into the Bel­lings­hau­sen Sea, hea­ding for Peter I Island.

Peter­mann Island

The Lemai­re Chan­nel ist among­st the most famous bits of Ant­ar­c­ti­ca. Thou­sands of tou­rists crui­se every sou­thern sum­mer through this unre­al water­way, a jaw­drop­ping expe­ri­ence. The Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la to the left and Booth Island to the right. Moun­ta­ins almost a thousand met­res high and some quite impres­siv gla­ciers to eit­her side. The Bel­gi­an explo­rer Adri­en de Ger­la­che, tog­e­ther with a young Roald Amund­sen, was among­st the first who descri­bed the Lemai­re Chan­nel as a place that could make a visi­tor shi­ver in awe. That was in ear­ly 1898.

The actu­al pas­sa­ge is a few hundred met­res nar­row and from a distance one may won­der if the­re is actual­ly a pas­sa­ge at all, and inde­ed, it can be blo­cked by drif­ting ice. The­re was a lot of ice, but far from being too much to keep us from pas­sing through. Cra­bea­ter and Leo­pard seals were wat­ching as Ort­eli­us was win­ding her way through bet­ween the ber­gy bits and ice­bergs.

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Most ships pass twice through the Lemai­re Chan­nel, once on the way south and then back again on the return jour­ney. We don’t turn around, we rather keep going fur­ther south. Peter­mann Island, a com­mon fur­thest south, is for us just a step­ping stone on the way to the south polar cir­cle. We were a bit worried that the small rocky landing bay might be blo­cked by brash ice, but were deligh­ted to find the coast clear. I was to have the plea­sant task of guar­ding the sou­thern end of the island for a while, which was visi­ted by nobo­dy. Under­stan­d­a­b­ly so, as the main attrac­tion, a colo­ny of Ade­lie pen­gu­ins, a new spe­ci­es for us on this trip, is on the nor­t­hern end, a few hundred met­res away. So I spent an enjoya­ble while sit­ting on a rock, a litt­le island in a sea of deep snow, with bree­ding Gen­too pen­gu­ins as my nea­rest neigh­bours, which are busy ste­al­ing stones from each others nests and fee­ding their off­spring. They are bree­ding around a woo­den cross that com­me­mo­ra­tes 3 Bri­tish sci­en­tists who got lost in sea ice in the vici­ni­ty of Peter­mann Island a while ago. I don’t think any­bo­dy knows if they got lost on an ice floe that drifted away or if they bro­ke through thin ice. Their bodies were never found. Even the pen­gu­ins seem to bend their heads in front of the cross.

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Gen­too pen­gu­ins are near their sou­thern dis­tri­bu­ti­on limit here on Peter­mann Island. This part of the coast of the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la, bet­ween 64 and 65 degrees south, is some­ti­mes cal­led the bana­na coast of Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, as it is sup­po­sedly mild. Not­hing is real­ly mild here, it is a wild land­scape of bar­ren, most­ly steep rocks and a lot of snow and ice, but on a fair­wea­ther day like today, it feels inde­ed warm.

Mild or not, we lea­ve this coast behind us and set cour­se for col­der parts of Ant­ar­c­ti­ca.

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Para­di­se Bay

Para­di­se Bay (actual­ly Para­di­se Har­bour) is a clas­sic in the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la, ever­bo­dies favou­ri­te. The grand sce­n­ery of coas­tal Ant­ar­c­ti­ca is cul­mi­na­ting here with ver­ti­cal rock­walls almost 1000 m high, sepa­ra­ted by migh­ty and hea­vi­ly crev­as­sed gla­ciers pushing down to the icy sea, pro­du­cing migh­ty ice­bergs with an impres­si­ve rum­ble. Com­ple­te this with the occa­sio­nal Wed­dell seal rela­xing on pie­ce of ice and a short glim­pse of a Min­ke wha­le, and you have got all you need for a 3 hour Zodiac crui­se.

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Now we are on our way towards the Lemai­re Chan­nel and Peter­mann Island. The Lemai­re was recent­ly blo­cked by ice, so we are curious if we can get through today.

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