Sailing through Ice

After our morning excursion, we continued south towards Petermann Island. We encountered a lot of ice, and seals love floating ice. We saw two crabeater seals and a leopard seal in short order. (I learned that crabeater seals actually eat krill, but Norwegians called krill crab, hence the name.)



They’re easy to spot because they are light-skinned, and leopard seals are easy to spot because of their markings. Up until this point, all the seals I had seen were hanging out on land so they just look blubbery and lazy. Seeing them on floating ice was great because they moved, even slithering like a snake across the ice to the ocean, dipping in, and then popping out on another piece of ice. That was great to watch.



The ice grew thicker and thicker, and at one point I didn’t think we could go any further. (We have a captain and an ice master on board, but still….) The ice master took us further than I could have imagined as he cut through slabs of ice. Unfortunately, we got to the point where Petermann Island was directly in front of us but we couldn’t safely get there, even with Zodiacs. We did make it all the way down to 65 degrees 30 minutes before we had to turn around. This photo gives you an idea of how much ice is there – that dark spot is a large seal:


This video shows us moving through the ice:


We saw a chunk of blue ice floating, check out the interesting texture:


Since we couldn’t land on Petermann Island, we headed over to Port Lockroy. This is the busiest destination in Antarctica, because it is a sheltered bay. Bransfield House on Goudier Island has a small gift shop and post office inside the museum. Four people live there for the season, with no running water or electricity. They arrived a few weeks ago and have been digging 5-6’ of snow each day to allow visitors to a restored British scientific station.

Since there are nearly 120 passengers on board our ship, the crew had to split this afternoon excursion in two. Half the group headed to Goudier Island while the other half of us went over to an adjacent island that we’ve all come to call Siberia (actual name is Jougla Point). This afternoon, we experienced the type of weather that we feared in Antarctica – cold air, heavy winds, and gusts that pierced our skin. We stood on the side of a hill with our arms out, and leaned back (downhill) 30 or so degrees while the wind supported our bodies by pushing us back uphill. That was cool! This particular picture isn't on much of a hill, but you get the idea:


We also saw more penguins, and an additional seal. But it was so cold and windy that none of us stayed for long. We headed back down to the Zodiac to be transported elsewhere. When we finally made it to Bransfield House, we were grateful for the haven.




Evening aboard the ship was full of food, fun, and even karaoke in one of the bars. I started feeling queasy, which reminded me that my magic patch was indeed older than 72 hours. I took a seasickness pill and was knocked out for the night.