At every turn there were impressive icebergs standing guard along our route. For some reason the captain didn't like our idea of trying to drive the boat through this one...
We are officially within the Antarctic Circle. Pretty exciting, pretty gorgeous, and pretty cold. Winter descends as we go further south. Last night as we cruised toward Rothera Station we began to encounter snow and ice, a lot of ice. I’ll post some footage when I get on station and can upload some audio and video of the ship slowly moving through the water. Icebergs half of a football field long and half that in height stood guard as we slowly made our way.
We were treated to a beautiful sunrise this morning. Much like an Aurora, we had a continuous show as the lighting and clouds transformed.
The sky looks like it's on fire as it rises. The layers of colors in the sky are pretty extraordinary.
The Captain and Mates are doing an awesome job navigating the ship through some potentially treacherous waters. Knowing the geography and anticipating what may be encountered are critical skills down here. Ships far bigger than the LMG that we are on have gotten stuck in the ice down here.
No this isn't the moon, but it looks like somewhere in outer space. This is what our ship had to travel through. There was a continuous clang noise against the bow as we broke through the ice.
The Laurence M. Gould (LMG) that I am traveling on is considered ice capable. Larger ships like the Nathaniel B. Palmer is considered an ice breaker. It's much larger. It even has a helicopter landing pad on it. A great book on getting stuck in the Antarctic ice is Endurance. It is about Ernest Shackleton’s expedition. There are all sorts of ice down here. Grease ice, brash, pancake ice, fast ice, and sea ice. Am I missing any? What we encountered last night was sea ice. With the snow and cloud cover it was pitch black save the spotlights from the ship. We were forced to push out further towards open water, which has slowed us down, a bit. Not to worry. I’m making the most of it by sending some of the sights back to you.
Steve Rupp is not only an amazing diver, but coordinated too. He can do a one-legged stand as the ship moves. Enjoying the scenery on the deck is always reason to do a dance or strike an impressive pose! He's throwing a shout out to PolarTREC teacher Michael League.
Here’s the question of the day – how are these monster bergs formed? Where do they come from? Hmmmmm.
Arctic terns are pretty amazing birds. They literally fly between Arctic and Antarctic. Their migration distance is over 44,000 miles!!
Here is an example of pancake ice but from this angle it's hard to see the pancake formations. These two bergs were pretty impressive.
This is a closer shot of the berg above. It looks like the top was cleaved off in one stroke.