Montagu Island and South Thule
Dec. 8th, 2007 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poletopoleShip's Position at 12:00:
For this morning's Zodiac outing I was ready right away and thus went on the first boat, which was captained by Jonas Wikander, the expedition leader for the cruise. Jonas has read and seen photos of recent volcanic activity on Montagu. Photos from last year (March 2006) show lava flowing beside a glacier on the north side of the island; where exactly this was, he doesn't know, but he very much wants to see lava and the passengers are all amenable to trying for that, too. The island isn't very big and we're on the lee side, so it could be just around the corner. So off he goes.
We end up motoring not quite halfway around the island and comprehensively determine that there is presently no dramatic lava happening. We do find what I believe must be the flow; it's recent lava, not weathered; it's still warm and gassy and there's no snow on it; and it juts into the sea. But Jonas, having read of the sea steaming and bubbling as the lava flows into it, is touchingly disappointed by this prosaic-looking heap of smoking basalt.
We have wonderful views of the island's conic shape, though, and of the basalt column cliffs around it, and of the cracked and creased and ash-layered glaciers above the basalt cliffs. It's a Jules Verne landscape.
My gloves aren't doing a good job of keeping my hands dry and warm. The slight frostbite I got on Deception Island makes me susceptible to worse. I'm going to have to try different gloves. I thought I had more waterproof gloves, but I've got only one pair of very bulky ski gloves. I need something splash-resistant.
In the afternoon we're supposed to land at South Thule, but we meet the ice pack at about 12:30 in an area marked "Forster's Passage" on the maps a little north of 60 degrees. This has, we're told, been one of the heaviest ice years in the Antarctic since the 1970's and the ice pack is farther north than has been usual at this season for a long time. The ice will affect our travel in many ways, but at the moment it keeps us from landing on South Thule. I am disappointed not to be at all the Thules in one year.
There is a small open area of water near the island, but the wind is blowing ice in and closing it. If we did land, we would have to leave in half an hour or sooner if the ice and wind changed; so, the staff decide not to land.
On South Thule is a ruined "research station" used as a supply dump during the Falklands War, which the British found strangely well-stocked with military supplies and flying an Argentine flag (the British flag folded under a stone nearby) after surrender in 1983; Foreign Office inquiries to the Argentine government were met with incomprehension and denials of all knowledge. From the account by Robert Headland, the Royal Marines had a splendid holiday driving vehicles off cliffs and then blowing the place up (with the stored propane, helicopter fuel, and explosives) after chasing the penguins out. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, though remote, must be one of the more interesting postings for the Royal Marines. The penguins have since moved back into the twisted wreckage; the metal debris sticking up (which we can see from the ship) helps protect them from skua raids. They also like anything secured by a wire---they nest under the wire and it keeps the skua from swooping in. Headland tells us that the penguins are very pleased with the base's stock of coiled water hoses, bright yellow ones neatly arranged in rows, which make perfect nesting platforms: a penguin in the center of each tidy coil.
The Argentines were so irked by this that they dug up an abandoned British research station on Deception Island the following year and dumped the remains into the sea.
As a postscript, Headland adds a possibly apocryphal story: that a cruise ship in the area with a rabidly nationalistic Argentine passenger may have had an unauthorized Zodiac landing... The passenger — intending to raise the flag, get a photo, lower it, replace the British flag, and beat it — being forced to retreat before he could complete his mission. Plausible, and another argument for more straitly controlled Antarctic tourism.
The ship is pushing through first-year ice now, big smooth sheets of it (terrifying penguins, in scattered fews), heading south. We'll be at sea for at least three days — possibly six — traveling toward the continent.
- 58°41.5' S 27°27.5' W
- Course 240°; Speed 14 kts
- Air temperature 1°C; Water temperature 0°C
- Wind 20 kts Direction 280°
- Weather: Cloudy; Visibility 6
- Ice Cover: Icebergs 5/10
- Distance covered past 24 hours: 170.9 nautical miles
For this morning's Zodiac outing I was ready right away and thus went on the first boat, which was captained by Jonas Wikander, the expedition leader for the cruise. Jonas has read and seen photos of recent volcanic activity on Montagu. Photos from last year (March 2006) show lava flowing beside a glacier on the north side of the island; where exactly this was, he doesn't know, but he very much wants to see lava and the passengers are all amenable to trying for that, too. The island isn't very big and we're on the lee side, so it could be just around the corner. So off he goes.
We end up motoring not quite halfway around the island and comprehensively determine that there is presently no dramatic lava happening. We do find what I believe must be the flow; it's recent lava, not weathered; it's still warm and gassy and there's no snow on it; and it juts into the sea. But Jonas, having read of the sea steaming and bubbling as the lava flows into it, is touchingly disappointed by this prosaic-looking heap of smoking basalt.
We have wonderful views of the island's conic shape, though, and of the basalt column cliffs around it, and of the cracked and creased and ash-layered glaciers above the basalt cliffs. It's a Jules Verne landscape.
My gloves aren't doing a good job of keeping my hands dry and warm. The slight frostbite I got on Deception Island makes me susceptible to worse. I'm going to have to try different gloves. I thought I had more waterproof gloves, but I've got only one pair of very bulky ski gloves. I need something splash-resistant.
In the afternoon we're supposed to land at South Thule, but we meet the ice pack at about 12:30 in an area marked "Forster's Passage" on the maps a little north of 60 degrees. This has, we're told, been one of the heaviest ice years in the Antarctic since the 1970's and the ice pack is farther north than has been usual at this season for a long time. The ice will affect our travel in many ways, but at the moment it keeps us from landing on South Thule. I am disappointed not to be at all the Thules in one year.
There is a small open area of water near the island, but the wind is blowing ice in and closing it. If we did land, we would have to leave in half an hour or sooner if the ice and wind changed; so, the staff decide not to land.
On South Thule is a ruined "research station" used as a supply dump during the Falklands War, which the British found strangely well-stocked with military supplies and flying an Argentine flag (the British flag folded under a stone nearby) after surrender in 1983; Foreign Office inquiries to the Argentine government were met with incomprehension and denials of all knowledge. From the account by Robert Headland, the Royal Marines had a splendid holiday driving vehicles off cliffs and then blowing the place up (with the stored propane, helicopter fuel, and explosives) after chasing the penguins out. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, though remote, must be one of the more interesting postings for the Royal Marines. The penguins have since moved back into the twisted wreckage; the metal debris sticking up (which we can see from the ship) helps protect them from skua raids. They also like anything secured by a wire---they nest under the wire and it keeps the skua from swooping in. Headland tells us that the penguins are very pleased with the base's stock of coiled water hoses, bright yellow ones neatly arranged in rows, which make perfect nesting platforms: a penguin in the center of each tidy coil.
The Argentines were so irked by this that they dug up an abandoned British research station on Deception Island the following year and dumped the remains into the sea.
As a postscript, Headland adds a possibly apocryphal story: that a cruise ship in the area with a rabidly nationalistic Argentine passenger may have had an unauthorized Zodiac landing... The passenger — intending to raise the flag, get a photo, lower it, replace the British flag, and beat it — being forced to retreat before he could complete his mission. Plausible, and another argument for more straitly controlled Antarctic tourism.
The ship is pushing through first-year ice now, big smooth sheets of it (terrifying penguins, in scattered fews), heading south. We'll be at sea for at least three days — possibly six — traveling toward the continent.
