Blogs from Ross Sea, Antarctica, Antarctica - page 2

If stepping ashore at Cape Adare was magical, walking down the gangway and straight onto a vast plain of snow-covered sea ice which stretched away to the distant foot of the Campbell Glacier was breathtaking. We’d spent the first few hours of the morning on the bridge or out on deck watching incredible scenery unfold around us. As we breakfasted, the ship rounded Cape Washington and the simple magnificence of Mount Melbourne, and entered Terra Nova Bay. In the distance were the ice cliffs of the Campbell Glacier’s tongue, and beyond that the peaks of the northern end of the Prince Albert Mountains. It was a stunning day. In compensation for the wind and grey skies of the day before, the sun was shining in skies that were a delicate shade of blue with only high ... read more

Breaking through the pack ice into the Ross Sea was far from a foregone conclusion. Aurora’s previous trip in January had not managed to do so, and we spent an extra couple of days battling this ice ourselves, venturing as far east as the dateline and using helicopters for recce flights before we found a path through. Once through and into the Ross Sea’s polynya, a recurring area of open water, our battles were far from over. Fast ice around the coast would challenge our attempts to approach some of our desired destinations sufficiently close for either Zodiac or helicopter landings. Last season’s pack ice should still have been disintegrating, but recent temperature variations meant that new ice was already forming rapidly. Even for Antarctica aficionados, it was an astonishing trip in terms of the number ... read more