At almost precisely 8:00 Saturday morning, Danny came over the PA system to announce that we had crossed 66º South latitude – the Antarctic Circle. As part of the push south, we skipped an excursion in the morning so we could make it to our destination for the day – an island that Danny used to work on with a narrow channel near Adelaide Island called “The Gullet” that was expected to be covered in sea ice.
It took most of the day to get there, and it required a live demonstration of the Sea Venture’s ice breaking capability, which was a show in and of itself. The ship seemed to cut through 3 foot thick sheets of ice like butter. Every so often, we’d come across a sheet with a napping seal and have to wake it up to make sure it was getting out of the way. Finally, we came to rest near a massive intact sheet.
As the expedition crew scouted locations for us to potentially walk on the ice, we got a wonderful surprise. Two Emperor penguins popped up on the ice sheet immediately aft of the ship as if to welcome us to the neighborhood. This was unexpected, as Emperor penguins aren’t normally in this area. Their colonies are either much farther south, or on the other side of the peninsula. These guys had traveled a long way to get here.
Our turn in the zodiacs was still an hour or more away, so we could only observe them from the back of the ship. They were standing on the edge of this huge ice sheet and could dive back in to the icy water at any moment. Most of the passengers were stuck in place. We didn’t dare walk away, lest we miss that classic “diving penguin” photo. One by one they ran out of patience, got cold, or got the call to prepare for their zodiac excursion. There were only a handful of us left, and I was on the verge of going in to thaw my frozen bare hands that holding been holding my telephoto lens for almost an hour, when they suddenly slid toward the surface and into the water. It might not be the best photo, but I got it!
It was then our turn to get in the zodiacs and cruise around the ice. We first went to see a few pods of Crab Eater seals that were lounging on the ice. Then our driver headed over to the spot the crew had flagged out as safe to walk on the sea ice. It was a bit like you would imaging Navy SEALs landing in some surprise attack. We picked up a good head of steam and charged straight for the ice edge, hoping to get enough of the boat up on the ice that we could safely get out.
We got it on the second try. The ice pack was plenty thick. The crew takes low risk almost to a silly extreme. There was no danger of falling through, but the top of the pack was covered in snow and about 3-6 inches of slush, making it very difficult to move around. We only had a few minutes, but we were able to experience standing on an ice sheet in the Antarctic Ocean.
That was it for the day. Danny’s plan for tomorrow is to press even further south to a place called Marguerite Bay. It is further south than either he or the captain of the ship have been before, and that’s saying something!
