During three days of ploughing through monumental seas – the captain reported four metre waves – we had reason to be grateful that our brave little ship had stabilisers – I hadn’t even known they were a thing, except on toddlers’ bicycles. Even so, we rolled, pitched and occasionally yawed our way, through that weird region of mists called the Antarctic convergence and finally spotted land. ‘Anardica!’ the Americans on board shouted. There was great excitement although for some this seemed to be a ticking off of their seventh continent.
Whalers knew about the Antarctic continent before ‘explorers’ discovered it but although mariners probably recognised that there must be a landmass affecting the climate and oceanic currents of the southern hemisphere whalers weren’t in the business of sharing information. It was quite a relief to reach the shelter of the Antarctic peninsula with its scattering of small island and icebergs so that it could be difficult to distinguish land from ice and where we could enjoy watching humpbacks fishing in the steely grey water. The sound of their blows became a background for us for the next couple of days. The igneous rock and the ice and the glaciers are awe-inspiring, a place where Nature must be shown enormous respect.
We went out in zodiacs, and later kayaks, sweeping by bergy bits and growlers, paddling through brash ice to get the best views of where crab-eater seals had hauled out for a snooze in the brittle sunshine. The shapes in the ice recalled antlers, battleships, elephants, small trees and even nativity scenes. Many of the bergs were deep blue striped and looked especially lovely when backlit. The ice can be dangerous though. Some bergs roll, and where glaciers reach the sea, there is calving where huge chunks – some are more than 1000 square kilometres – break off and are set free.
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| Snoozing crab-eater seal |
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| Looking chilled |
And then we set foot on the White Continent, at Horseshoe Bay
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| A bergy bit (or maybe it was a berg) the size of a couple of trucks - in stately slow motion - rolled right over |
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| The stripes on a bergy bit would have been laid down paralell to the sea srfuace so this monster must have rolled several times |
Bergy bit = a piece of floating ice usually with between one and five metres above the surface of the sea. Growler = a piece of ice that Is almost awash; smaller than a bergy bit.
My first Antacrtic blog is here
What is an Expedition?