Thu
26 Mar
2020

A bit of a mira­cle has hap­pen­ed: I am on the train from Frank­furt to Dres­den.

Yes­ter­day it all see­med far away and somehow unrea­li­stic, after all the back and forth of the days befo­re. But sud­den­ly things hap­pen­ed. Ever­y­bo­dy boo­ked flights as much as they could. Not exact­ly straight­for­ward for many on board, and not exact­ly made easier by the means of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on we had available. Con­side­ring the who­le situa­ti­on, it is per­fect­ly under­stan­da­ble if blood pres­su­re and emo­ti­ons are occa­siona­ly steam­ing a bit when a boo­king web­site kicks you out during the pay­ment pro­cess for the 100th time or of misun­derstan­dings lead to expen­si­ve dou­ble boo­kings. But final­ly most seem to have got flights and it looks as if most if not all can tra­vel home over the next 2-3 days.

I hap­pen­ed to be in the first group that went, being a bit of a gui­nea pig for the „sani­taire cor­ri­dor“. Which is actual­ly a bus with the dri­ver behind glass, an ambu­lan­ce car and a num­ber of poli­ce­men on motor­bikes, and we went through Mon­te­vi­deo just as the pre­si­dent of a lar­ge coun­try would have done. If you ask me then I would say that this might be a litt­le bit exag­ge­ra­ted. Just lea­ving half an hour ear­lier would have done. But any­way, we got to the air­port!

From the­re on it was just like any flight pas­sa­ge, just with face masks which were – at least during the „sani­taire cor­ri­dor“ – com­pul­so­ry for us. Less traf­fic in the air­ports than during nor­mal times, but actual­ly more than I would have thought. I am very curious what the new rea­li­ty will look like for us who just retur­ned from a long trip in the Ant­ar­c­tic. I guess more or less not­hing will be as it used to be when we went on board, which was a cou­ple of weeks ago and not a cou­ple of years.

So, this voya­ge back home sud­den­ly seems to come to a quick and hap­py ending. I keep fin­gers crossed that this goes for ever­y­bo­dy who left yes­ter­day or today or is still on board Ort­eli­us or Plan­ci­us in Mon­te­vi­deo – we left actual­ly tog­e­ther with the first dis­em­bar­king pas­sen­gers and staff from Plan­ci­us. Fin­gers crossed for ever­y­bo­dy! I wish you all a good, safe and quick trip home!

To make one thing clear: this was obvious­ly not a mira­cle (alt­hough it feels like one right now) but the result of end­less nego­tia­ti­ons on many chan­nels and levels. A big thank you from me to Ocean­wi­de Expe­di­ti­ons!

Wed
25 Mar
2020

So far, so good: we are along­side in Mon­te­vi­deo. If ever­y­thing works accor­ding to plan from here on, then this should have been the last beau­tiful sun­set at sea for most of us, with the sky­line of Mon­te­vi­deo in the fore­ground.

Gre­at atmo­sphe­re last night. The Ort­eli­us choir per­for­med and many songs fol­lo­wed. Time to say good­bye.

Fin­gers crossed that this was inde­ed the last evening with ever­y­bo­dy on board. We are curr­ent­ly all on board, the day has just star­ted here at the time of wri­ting. Most of us are sche­du­led to fly out today, tomor­row or on Fri­day. Not all of us. Some pre­fer to remain on board, others are not able to reach their home count­ries due to tra­vel rest­ric­tions. But let’s see what the next days bring. The­re will still be nego­tia­ti­ons and decis­i­ons. We are not home yet.

Tue
24 Mar
2020

The pas­sa­ge north from the Bea­gle Chan­nel to the River Pla­te, with Bue­nos Aires (who knows, who knows) and Mon­te­vi­deo (our cur­rent hope) are situa­ted, turns out to be most­ly rather plea­sant. We could now most­ly relax a bit – app­re­cia­ted that ever­y­bo­dy has his or her own view on the who­le situa­ti­on – and enjoy the open sea, the blue sky, some beau­tiful sun­sets, birds, dol­phins and wha­les and a lec­tu­re here or a film the­re.

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

Nego­tia­ti­ons are going on in the back­ground. Con­su­la­tes, embas­sies, govern­ments, tra­vel agen­ci­es and of cour­se the head office of Ocean­wi­de Expe­di­ti­ons in Vlis­sin­gen (Net­her­lands) are busy try­ing to find a solu­ti­on for us. Curr­ent­ly we put our hopes on Mon­te­vi­deo.

Fri
20 Mar
2020

So the­re was not­hing else we could have achie­ved in Ushua­ia, they would just not allow us to lea­ve the ship. But we were rea­dy for all kinds of sce­na­ri­os, inclu­ding a full month at sea – this voya­ge, or rather the ship-based part of it, may just as well end in The Net­her­lands.

Most of us would cer­tain­ly wish to go back home as soon as pos­si­ble. Obli­ga­ti­ons of all sorts, or „just“ the desi­re to be clo­se to fri­ends and fami­ly – pret­ty much ever­y­bo­dy has got good reasons of one or ano­ther kind. But the Coro­na-virus is just clo­sing the pla­net down. Argen­ti­na threa­tens to decla­re a nati­on­wi­de sta­te of emer­gen­cy (wha­te­ver the exact wor­ding was), so we bet­ter take off and lea­ve befo­re the clo­se the port.

Our hope was to sail up to Bue­nos Aires and fly out from the­re. We would just not be allo­wed to fly the­re, the trip to Bue­nos Aires would have to be on the ship, and we would need a valid flight ticket and of cour­se no nor­mal tra­vels into the coun­try, just a direct and safe pas­sa­ge to the air­port. So ever­y­bo­dy went and star­ted loo­king into flight arran­ge­ments out of Bue­nos Aires.

But this hope was not to last long. Argen­ti­na announ­ced to clo­se the coun­try soon, and we would not be able to get to Bue­nos Aires so quick­ly. We will need a cou­ple of days for this pas­sa­ge of a good 1500 nau­ti­cal miles.

Any­way, we got a love­ly pas­sa­ge of the Bea­gle Chan­nel. Some of us have been through the­re dozens of times but you hard­ly ever real­ly see it becau­se it is eit­her the first day of the voya­ge when you are busy with brie­fings, life­boat drill and so on or the last day and then it is usual­ly at night.

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

Near Puer­to Wil­liams we could at least say good­bye to our 6 heli­c­op­ter crew (3 pilots, 3 mecha­nics) who had final­ly got their per­mis­si­on to lea­ve the ship with their heli­c­op­ters and fly into Chi­le. Home, for them! They are Chi­le­ans! And even for them it was uncer­tain wether they were able to lea­ve the ship and go home. The world is a cra­zy place the­se days. We were reli­e­ved when they final­ly got green light, and it was a warm fare­well and good­bye and some very fri­end­ly fly­ing around the ship.

Thu
19 Mar
2020

Nor­mal­ly today would have been the day to say good­bye. Our pas­sen­gers would have left the ship, new ones would come in the after­noon and so on and so forth. But not today. Not in this world which now seems to be ful­ly con­trol­led by the Coro­na virus.

We main­tai­ned a slim hope that we might still be able to get off. Hon­di­us was along­side just oppo­si­te and we could watch their pas­sen­gers lea­ving the ship, get­ting on to buses and to the air­port, whe­re pla­nes were landing and taking off. But not so here. Peo­p­le were sit­ting on their lug­ga­ge with valid tickets in their pockets. It did not help.

The dif­fe­rence bet­ween Ort­eli­us and Hon­di­us? Hon­di­us just made a trip from Ushua­ia to Ant­ar­c­ti­ca and back to Ushua­ia. So, in an Argen­ti­ne (!) per­spec­ti­ve, they never left the coun­try, other than some open sea pas­sa­ge. And Ort­eli­us? We left from New Zea­land, so it was an inter­na­tio­nal voya­ge. Of cour­se we have been on board for 32 days wit­hout any sym­ptoms of any kind of serious infec­tion and we have not seen a soul in all the­se days – but who cares?

Thank you, Argen­ti­na!

So the day went and so did the hope that we might be able to lea­ve. Final­ly the bags were unpa­cked again.

Wed
18 Mar
2020

This voya­ge had star­ted so well, but now our luck was run­ning out. After a stor­my day east of Ross Island, the sou­thern Ross Sea star­ted to free­ze over lar­ge are­as. Beau­tiful to see, but the end­less miles of den­se, tough pan­ca­ke ice were not hel­pful and cost us pre­cious time.

We rea­ched the Ross Ice Shelf just on the edge of the Bay of Wha­les in the late evening of 04th March. Well, „rea­ched“ is rela­ti­ve. We did not get any clo­ser than 12 nau­ti­cal miles (22 km) until it beca­me clear that it did not make much sen­se to pro­ceed that direc­tion. The ice shelf was just about visi­ble with bino­cu­lars. It was alre­a­dy too dark for the heli­c­op­ters and the clouds were moving in, so wai­ting would most likely just have meant a loss of even more pre­cious time, espe­ci­al­ly as we could lite­ral­ly watch the sea free­zing around us. So the choice was clear – actual­ly, it was the only thing to do rather than a choice: lea­ve. Cle­ar­ly a dis­ap­point­ment, this was some­thing we could all agree on.

More sur­pri­ses in terms of ice were to fol­low the next days. The Ross Sea was real­ly free­zing over in lar­ge are­as simul­ta­neous­ly. Fasci­na­ting and beau­tiful, but unfort­u­na­te­ly slo­wing us down again.

The two days that tur­ned out to be pivo­tal were the 06th and the 07th of March. We were to be steam­ing full ahead towards the Bel­lings­hau­sen Sea and Peter I. Island – or at least, this is what we wan­ted to do. Ins­tead, we spent most of the­se two days ploug­hing slow­ly through den­se ice mas­ses whe­re we had expec­ted ice-free water accor­ding to our ice charts. In the mor­ning of the 7th of March we found our­sel­ves 20 miles fur­ther away from Peter I. Island than 2 days ago at the some time. Two full days lost! That was a bit of a bad sur­pri­se.

Then we went up to speed again, but not enough to catch up with what we had lost in terms of time. We rea­ched Peter I. Island final­ly in the ear­ly mor­ning hours of the 13th of March, but it was quite stor­my and the visi­bi­li­ty pret­ty poor.

By then it had alre­a­dy beco­me clear that we would not have enough time any­mo­re to con­ti­nue to the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la. Ins­tead, we were forced to set cour­se direct­ly for the Bea­gle Chan­nel and Ushua­ia. No sur­pri­se that this cau­sed gre­at dis­ap­point­ment, and emo­ti­ons went high. I can not say that I enjoy­ed the rest of the voya­ge. I don’t think I have ever writ­ten some­thing like that in the blog befo­re, but this is just what it was.

The pas­sa­ge towards Tier­ra del Fue­go was most­ly pret­ty rough, and we got our share of storm and hea­vy seas near Cape Hoorn, which we did, howe­ver, not see becau­se the visi­bi­li­ty was pret­ty poor.

We rea­ched Ushua­ia just about in time in the mor­ning of the 18th of March. But big ques­ti­on­marks were now han­ging over ever­y­thing dis­em­bar­ka­ti­on, say­ing good­bye, tra­vel­ling home – the last voya­ge of Ort­eli­us, to the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la, had alre­a­dy been can­cel­led days ago – was all uncer­tain by now, to say the least. The world out­side Ant­ar­c­ti­ca was now taken over by the Coro­na virus, and we would have to see what that meant for us.

Mon
2 Mar
2020

The wea­ther fore­cast indi­ca­ted an oppor­tu­ni­ty, so we were rea­dy to go at Cape Evans in the ear­ly mor­ning. It was still quite win­dy and that in com­bi­na­ti­on with an air tem­pe­ra­tu­re of about -12°C made it pret­ty chill­ly

But it work­ed. So we had all the oppor­tu­ni­ty to visit the famous Dis­co­very hut whe­re Scott left for his ill-fated jour­ney to the South Pole in 1911. What a man, what a sto­ry, what a place!

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

Later that day we con­tin­ued towards the far end of Hut Point Pen­in­su­la as we still had an invi­ta­ti­on from Scott Base and some infor­ma­ti­on that the local con­di­ti­ons should be ok. But the wind just kept picking up as we got clo­ser and soon it was very clear that we would not achie­ve any­thing in that area. So we tur­ned north again, around Ross Island and towards the Ross Ice­s­helf and the Bay of Wha­les.

Sun
1 Mar
2020

Also today the­re is quite a bit of wind blo­wing in the area, no chan­ce to make a landing. Ant­ar­c­ti­ca is not always a pie­ce of cake, and cer­tain­ly not the Ross Sea.

But later, the sun comes out. It is icy cold and younc ice is forming on lar­ge are­as of water. Stun­ning light … and emper­or pen­gu­ins just about ever­y­whe­re on the ice!

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

Sat
29 Feb
2020

The day began just like the pre­vious one had ended: win­dy and grey. Very win­dy inde­ed, and very grey.

But it was quite a bit bet­ter on the west side of the McMur­do Sound. The sun was coming out, and the wind was cal­ming down. We pas­sed through all stages of sea ice for­ma­ti­on as we approa­ched the Trans­ant­ar­c­tic Moun­ta­ins, from grease ice through various kinds of pan­ca­ke ice and final­ly into solid ice floes.

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

Soon the heli­c­op­ters were rea­dy and we star­ted fly­ing into Tay­lor Val­ley, which is one of the famous McMur­do Dry Val­leys. We mana­ged to give ever­y­bo­dy the oppor­tu­ni­ty to set a foot ashore the­re – a short but very sweet walk near Cana­da Gla­cier. Gre­at!

Fri
28 Feb
2020

We have rea­ched the core area of our voya­ge, McMur­do Sound, the heart of the Ross Sea.

But, alas, the timing appears to be bad. A strong low pres­su­re moves over the Ross Sea area and the coas­tal zone of low winds in McMur­do Sound that the fore­cast had pro­mi­sed tur­ned out to be non-exis­tent. No chan­ce to get ashore as the winds are raging from 25 knots upwards to more than 50 knots. We pass Cape Royds and Cape Evans, Hut Point and McMur­do Base and even Scott Base – the sea is com­ple­te­ly open as far as that! Unbe­lie­va­ble; that does cer­tain­ly not hap­pen every year. But it is alre­a­dy start­ing to free­ze over again. The tem­pe­ra­tu­re is around -12 degrees and grey stripes of grease ice are all over the waves.

mcmur­do soand (gal­lery):

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

Cape Evans

Fresh ice crys­tals forming in stor­my waters.

Scott's Dis­co­very-hut at Hut Point near McMur­do Base.

True wind speed (TWS) in the upper right cor­ner.

Fri
28 Feb
2020

The wea­ther in the Ter­ra Nova Bay area is not exact­ly gre­at today. No chan­ce to make a landing on Inex­pres­si­ble Island, whe­re Scott’s nor­t­hern par­ty spend a mise­ra­ble win­ter in 1912 and whe­re Chi­na is curr­ent­ly pre­pa­ring for buil­ding ano­ther sta­ti­on (gre­at! Ano­ther sta­ti­on! Ant­ar­c­ti­ca needs more sta­ti­ons! Chi­na only has four sta­ti­ons, they do need ano­ther one! And the­re are only three sta­ti­ons so far in Ter­ra Nova Bay, the­re has to be a fourth one! For­gi­ve me for get­ting slight­ly sar­ca­stic here).

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

We pass the Ita­li­an Mario Zuc­chel­li Base and later we get a glim­pse of the Ger­man Gond­wa­na Base. Then we find a litt­le bay that pro­vi­des enough shel­ter for a love­ly litt­le Zodiac crui­se, with ple­nty of Wed­dell seals, Adé­lie pen­gu­ins and some good sce­n­ery. The view is clea­ring up towards the evening.

Thu
27 Feb
2020

The­re is curr­ent­ly not much ice in the Ross Sea, but the­re is a belt of den­se drift ice in the area of Cape Hal­let.
 
We are steam­ing south, towards the McMur­do Sound.
 

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

Tue
25 Feb
2020

We were rea­dy to go ashore at Cape Ada­re in the ear­ly mor­ning, but the surf was going high on the beach which was, to make things even more dif­fi­cult, lar­e­ly blo­cked with ice.

So we con­tin­ued into Robert­son Bay and got the heli­c­op­ters up and fly­ing to get some impres­si­ons of this huge­ly impres­si­ve gla­cier land­scape from the air.

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

Mon
24 Feb
2020

We have a day at sea bet­ween the Bal­le­ny Islands and Cape Ada­re. The day starts with snow on deck, and the visi­bi­li­ty is often redu­ced by snow show­ers. A very ant­ar­c­tic day. The wind picks up during the after­noon, but that does not mat­ter too much as long as it does not slow us down.

Ant­ar­c­tic pet­rels delight us with their clo­se com­pa­ny for most of the day.

Sun
23 Feb
2020

The Bal­le­ny Islands are a small, wild, very remo­te archi­pe­la­go direct­ly on the south polar cir­cle, to the nor­thwest of the Ross Sea. You have to be lucky to get clo­se to them.

We were lucky. Not from the begin­ning – Stur­ge Island didn’t real­ly want us – but at Sabri­na Islands, near the south end of Buck­le Island, we all got off and into the boats. A landing is hard­ly ever available here, lar­ge­ly made impos­si­ble by sea con­di­ti­ons, the steep ter­rain and legis­la­ti­on. But that doesn’t mat­ter. You get pret­ty clo­se in the Zodiacs. Stun­ning, very wild sce­n­ery and a lot of ice. And a lot of wild­life. Chin­strap pen­gu­ins, as one might suspect. And, unex­pec­ted­ly, a lonely King pen­gu­in.

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