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poletopoleShip's Position at 12:00:
Today's travel alternated between leads of open water and heavy, resistant ice that had to be rammed and broken. The ice looked often to have a thick layer of snow on top, adding weight. More birds, seals, and penguins are around; the birds soar around the ship, hoping it's a fishing boat; the seals lift their heads but don't move unless they're immediately threatened by its passage (the jostling of the floes can tip them!); and the penguins, which generally seem to be asleep, are often startled as the ship bears down on their resting place. Even if it passes some hundred meters or more away, the penguins are still panicked. This evening eight penguins experience the worst-case scenario: they are asleep on their ice floe and the ship approaches. They remain asleep until the ship is very, very close and when they wake they run here and there, trying to find water. Penguins prefer to dive to get away from the ship. But the ice chunks around their floe are jammed or frozen together. They can't get to open water to dive, and scramble away, disorganized, clumsy, disoriented and terrified, over the jumbled ice — the most difficult kind of terrain for a penguin to negotiate. I count them before and after the ship passes, and all eight make it out of the way onto a very large, smoother floe.
We also pass seals resting on ice floes, but unless they are inconvenienced extremely they tend to stay put. One crabeater seal today is freshly maimed: it is missing a hind paw, most probably from a leopard seal attack, but possibly from orcas.
A beautiful Antarctic sunset-sunrise with clearing skies slowly progresses from about 22:30 on. I stay until about 01:30 but need to get my gear ready and sleep for a few hours: we're supposed to arrive at a fast-ice spot from which we'll visit Mawson Station, which I'm very much looking forward to seeing! And, it will be our first Antarctic landing.
- 65°39.2' S 61°03.8' E
- Course 180°; Speed 13 kts
- Air temperature 4°C; Wind 24 kts; Direction 110°
- Weather: Cloudy; Visibility 8
- Ice Cover: 6/10
- Distance covered past 24 hours: 224.3 nautical miles
Today's travel alternated between leads of open water and heavy, resistant ice that had to be rammed and broken. The ice looked often to have a thick layer of snow on top, adding weight. More birds, seals, and penguins are around; the birds soar around the ship, hoping it's a fishing boat; the seals lift their heads but don't move unless they're immediately threatened by its passage (the jostling of the floes can tip them!); and the penguins, which generally seem to be asleep, are often startled as the ship bears down on their resting place. Even if it passes some hundred meters or more away, the penguins are still panicked. This evening eight penguins experience the worst-case scenario: they are asleep on their ice floe and the ship approaches. They remain asleep until the ship is very, very close and when they wake they run here and there, trying to find water. Penguins prefer to dive to get away from the ship. But the ice chunks around their floe are jammed or frozen together. They can't get to open water to dive, and scramble away, disorganized, clumsy, disoriented and terrified, over the jumbled ice — the most difficult kind of terrain for a penguin to negotiate. I count them before and after the ship passes, and all eight make it out of the way onto a very large, smoother floe.
We also pass seals resting on ice floes, but unless they are inconvenienced extremely they tend to stay put. One crabeater seal today is freshly maimed: it is missing a hind paw, most probably from a leopard seal attack, but possibly from orcas.
A beautiful Antarctic sunset-sunrise with clearing skies slowly progresses from about 22:30 on. I stay until about 01:30 but need to get my gear ready and sleep for a few hours: we're supposed to arrive at a fast-ice spot from which we'll visit Mawson Station, which I'm very much looking forward to seeing! And, it will be our first Antarctic landing.
