poletopole (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
poletopole) wrote2007-12-16 08:00 pm
poletopole) wrote2007-12-16 08:00 pm
Sunday on ice
Ship's Position at 12:00:
We are still traveling east as fast as the ship can go, breaking ice with occasional patches of water. The ice is manageable — not the heavy thick multi-year ice — but sometimes a particularly seamy section crossed by many pressure ridges slows the ship down. Of much interest is the presence each day of new ice, ice in the earliest stages of formation and solidifying, over large areas. This should not be happening at this time of year.
Many activities were hustled up to keep the passengers (and staff) occupied today; there was an art workshop (for some reason these are not announced on the PA and so I miss at least half of them), a fascinating talk on Antarctic atmospheric effects with tons of gasp-worthy photos by AAS glaciologist Mike Craven (including one of a snow tractor fallen nose-first into a crevasse — the procedure when this happens, he said blandly, is for the driver to climb out of the cab through the roof trapdoor, go back to the cargo truck he's pulling, and change his underwear); penguins' adaptations to their environment explained; a Russian lesson (skipped that); an afternoon video/film showing. I feel over-programmed and, instead of trying to go to most of the lectures, try to pass on some: I'll never get my photos downloaded or review the ones taken, or anything else done! By the time the expedition staff holds a "recap" meeting in the lounge, I'm just wanting a short memo on how we're doing.
The summary of the meeting is that there are two more days (Monday, Tuesday) of sea-ice travel before they expect the ship to be in landing range of the Riiser-Larson peninsula. So, more ice time, more sea time. If it takes us a day to get into Riiser-Larsen, it will take at least a day to get out — and then there'll be more travel time to the next possible landing. Heavy overcast this evening — no lavish sunset or sky effects.
To further amuse the passengers, they've cancelled breakfast tomorrow and instead the expedition staff will cook and serve brunch on the bow. With free beer. They promise that the ship will be turned so that the wind will not freeze the food and people and snatch away the plates (and food), but I for one would prefer a brunch consisting of eggs Benedict, with smoked salmon, eaten hot, indoors.
Dipping in and out of a battered copy of Scott's Voyage of the Discovery, from the ship's library. The cover has a nice old-fashioned imprinted illustration showing a three-masted ship, surrounded by birds, bearing down on an ice floe where two penguins of indeterminate species stare at it uncomprehendingly. Inside is a pastel plate of the same scene; the birds look rather like stars, the sun is impressively haloed and sundogged, and the whole evokes Peter Pan more than the Antarctic, even with the penguins. Useful advice such as "an iceberg of any dimensions is not to be trifled with" peppers the pages.
Tonight's movie is Happy Feet, which is about penguins in the way that Mary Poppins is about the British educational system.
- 65°32.2' S 22°48.2' E
- Course 90°; Speed 11 kts
- Air temperature 4°C; Wind 20 kts; Direction 110°
- Weather: Cloudy; Visibility 6
- Ice Cover: 9-10/10
- Distance covered past 24 hours: 319.4 nautical miles
We are still traveling east as fast as the ship can go, breaking ice with occasional patches of water. The ice is manageable — not the heavy thick multi-year ice — but sometimes a particularly seamy section crossed by many pressure ridges slows the ship down. Of much interest is the presence each day of new ice, ice in the earliest stages of formation and solidifying, over large areas. This should not be happening at this time of year.
Many activities were hustled up to keep the passengers (and staff) occupied today; there was an art workshop (for some reason these are not announced on the PA and so I miss at least half of them), a fascinating talk on Antarctic atmospheric effects with tons of gasp-worthy photos by AAS glaciologist Mike Craven (including one of a snow tractor fallen nose-first into a crevasse — the procedure when this happens, he said blandly, is for the driver to climb out of the cab through the roof trapdoor, go back to the cargo truck he's pulling, and change his underwear); penguins' adaptations to their environment explained; a Russian lesson (skipped that); an afternoon video/film showing. I feel over-programmed and, instead of trying to go to most of the lectures, try to pass on some: I'll never get my photos downloaded or review the ones taken, or anything else done! By the time the expedition staff holds a "recap" meeting in the lounge, I'm just wanting a short memo on how we're doing.
The summary of the meeting is that there are two more days (Monday, Tuesday) of sea-ice travel before they expect the ship to be in landing range of the Riiser-Larson peninsula. So, more ice time, more sea time. If it takes us a day to get into Riiser-Larsen, it will take at least a day to get out — and then there'll be more travel time to the next possible landing. Heavy overcast this evening — no lavish sunset or sky effects.
To further amuse the passengers, they've cancelled breakfast tomorrow and instead the expedition staff will cook and serve brunch on the bow. With free beer. They promise that the ship will be turned so that the wind will not freeze the food and people and snatch away the plates (and food), but I for one would prefer a brunch consisting of eggs Benedict, with smoked salmon, eaten hot, indoors.
Dipping in and out of a battered copy of Scott's Voyage of the Discovery, from the ship's library. The cover has a nice old-fashioned imprinted illustration showing a three-masted ship, surrounded by birds, bearing down on an ice floe where two penguins of indeterminate species stare at it uncomprehendingly. Inside is a pastel plate of the same scene; the birds look rather like stars, the sun is impressively haloed and sundogged, and the whole evokes Peter Pan more than the Antarctic, even with the penguins. Useful advice such as "an iceberg of any dimensions is not to be trifled with" peppers the pages.
Tonight's movie is Happy Feet, which is about penguins in the way that Mary Poppins is about the British educational system.