Christmas and Boxing Day pass in a bit of a blur. We get our first chance to walk on water (oh, ok, it's fast sea ice - that mean's it's stuck to the land rather than floating freely in the ocean - but it's still water, even if it is frozen!) at Cape Washington, where we have an awesome day with Emperor Penguins and their chicks.
We get a chance to see round a couple of bases the following day - Mc Murdo and Scott Base - one America and one New Zealand. The contrast in many ways couldn't be greater - 1200 people spend summer at McMurdo compared to roughly a tenth of that at Scott. Hillary's hut is a fascinating museum piece which feels very modern compared to Scott's Discovery Hut at Hut Point by the American McMurdo base.
First of all a Ross Seal decides to interrupt our lunch - it's such a rare sighting that the captain very kindly and adeptly manoevers the boat for the best position at a really close range (for a 400mm lens that is!). To put the rareness of this sighting into perspective - Sue Flood, our expedition photographer, says that in 35 years of working in the Antarctic, her husband (film-maker Doug Allen) has never seen even one Ross Seal, and now we've seen two!
“We will be starting with Zodiac groups 3,4 and 5. When they get back, it will be groups 6,7 and 8, then 9, 1 and 2. I cannot guarantee that we will be able to get you all to shore safely, and if conditions change, we will have to stop the zodiacs” said Shane, rather prophetically as it turned out. This time luck was with me - I was in Zodiac group 5, the last Zodiac of the first group of 5, heading out to Peter 1 Oy (or island), a very remote peri-Antarctic island, some 450km from the mainland on the rarely visited est coast of Antarctica.
After a day spent just offshore from the Falklands taking on fuel for the whole month's journey we endured the rite of passage now known as the Drake Shake (the Drake Pasage). It's notorious as one of the roughest crossings on the planet, and on our crossing, gave us Force 9 gales and 6m waves. Sadly, this blew us far enough west off-course to miss the South Shetland Isles. But we discovered a new use for lifejackets - as head padding against the bunk headwall when the ship rolls more than 30deg!
This morning’s a very early start – Williams collects us at 0400 for a two hour trip to […]
