One of the reasons people come to Antarctica is to
see and to experience ice and that was exactly what today was all about. As we have mentioned several times in
this blog, the Weddell Sea has largely been impassable for Expedition Cruise
ships this season. As we pass the
zenith of summer, the extent of the ice is diminishing. We could see on our satellite ice
charts that at the very least, we would be able to experience giant tabular
icebergs up close and we would be able to patrol the edge of the sea ice pack.
There was lots of blue sky and sunshine early this
morning. And as expected, there
was lots of ice! Instead of doing
a landing today we opted to drop the Polar Cirkle boats and go cruising in the
heavy sea ice and have a close up view of tabular bergs from sea level. There is nothing quite like cruising
through heavy ice in a small boat.
It is really a fun and thrilling experience.
We were also hoping to be able to find seals
lounging on ice floes and as luck would have it we found several Crabeater
Seals and two or three Weddell Seals.
Speaking of luck: a few people got to see a juvenile Emperor
Penguin!! The northernmost Emperor
Colony is less than 100 kms from where we were cruising but it was still an
incredible stroke of luck to see a lone juvenile Emperor Penguin on an ice
floe!
We wrapped up the cruising around noon. Many people said it was there favourite
thing to do so far and if given the choice, they would love to do even more
Polar Cirkle boat cruising!
The rest of the day was full speed ahead. We had a lot of miles to cover in order
to reach Peterman Island tomorrow morning. As we headed south the skies quickly closed in, the sea
picked up and it began to snow.
What a transformation from our fantastic weather this morning.
In the afternoon the Polhogda and Framheim lecture
halls were full as we once again picked up with our lecture series.
At
21:45 we met in the observation Lounge for a fashion show of the merchandise in
the onboard gift shop. And who
were the models? None other than
the entire Expedition Team and the officers of the ship!
