Ter­ra Nova Bay – Febru­ary 24th, 2017

Fri
24 Feb
2017

The distances are lar­ge also within in the Ross Sea, so we can dedi­ca­te the mor­ning to some hours of rest. Not­hing wrong about that. But then our hopes and expec­ta­ti­ons are rising, as we approach the wes­tern coast of the Ross Sea again, the Trans­ant­ar­c­tic Moun­ta­ins around Ter­ra Nova Bay. We sail past the migh­ty Cape Washing­ton, home to an Emper­or pen­gu­in colo­ny in win­ter. Mount Mel­bourne is towe­ring in the same sec­tion of the pan­ora­ma, a lar­ge, vol­ca­nic cone of beau­tiful sym­me­try.

Ter­ra Nova Bay is some­thing like the King Geor­ge Island of the Ross Sea. The­re is a lar­ge num­ber of sta­ti­ons on King Geor­ge Island in the South Shet­lands, ever­y­bo­dy has to have his flagg fly­ing the­re. Over here, the­re are three sta­ti­ons within a few kilo­me­t­res. Ger­mans and Core­ans can visit each other with just a short walk, whe­re­as Karl and Lee will need a boat for an Ita­li­an din­ner. But Karl and Lui­gi have alre­a­dy left and clo­sed their respec­ti­ve places down for the win­ter, they will only be here during the sum­mer.

After a lot of back­ground com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on with aut­ho­ri­ties and sta­ti­on lea­ders, we deci­ded to have a clo­ser look at the Ita­li­an Mario Zuc­chel­li Base. Just the pro­s­pect to step on good, solid ant­ar­c­tic gra­ni­te was a good one, not to men­ti­on tho­se on board who have an Ita­li­an con­nec­tion. Some of them felt imme­dia­te­ly at home!

Gal­lery – Ter­ra Nova Bay – Febru­ary 24th, 2017

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Mario Zuc­chel­li Base may not be the most scenic place in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, some­thing it has in com­mon with most sta­ti­ons except some of the older ones, which blend nice­ly into the land­scape. The modern ones are usual­ly coll­ec­tions of con­tai­ner buil­dings crow­ned with satel­li­te dis­hes and sur­roun­ded by hea­vy vehic­les and other tech­no­lo­gy. So we don’t spend too many hours in litt­le Ita­ly, in order to have time for ano­ther litt­le landing, name­ly at the Ger­man Gond­wa­na-sta­ti­on. Gond­wa­na is ano­ther sum­mer-only based, they have only done main­tainan­ce work this sum­mer, but no sci­ence. As at Mario Zuc­chel­li base, the­re is nobo­dy here any­mo­re and the sta­ti­on is rea­dy to face the ant­ar­c­tic win­ter. The Gond­wa­na is much smal­ler and the ter­rain allows love­ly views over the sur­roun­ding sce­n­ery. Some Wed­dell-seals are hau­led out on land near the beach. We enjoy the who­le set­ting for a while, and then it is time to set cour­se for McMur­do Sound.