The Heroic Age - far, far South

Today we landed on the Antarctic continent – well Ross Island actually, but it is of course attached to the main land mass by the Ross Ice Shelf.  This Ice Shelf should be renamed the “Claytons” Ice Shelf, because for the first time in 20 years, a ship has been able to traverse the Ross Sea down to McMurdo Sound without having to break through miles and miles of pack ice!

4am wake up call, and we were travelling down the gangway to the zodiacs by 5am.  We were at Cape Evans, the site of Scott’s Hut for the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition 1910-1913, which saw Robert Falcon Scott attempt to be the first to the South Pole, only to arrive and find the Norwegian Amundsen had beaten them to it.  Of course we all know the story how Ross and his 3 companions never made it back.  

The hut has undergone remarkable restoration, and is situated on the shoreline at Cape Evans, beneath the smouldering volcano Mt Erebus.  It was smoking today!  The hut looks like Scott and his men left for a day’s outing and meant to return!  There are approximately 8,500 artifacts in the main building and annexe where the ponies were kept.  I particularly liked the science laboratory and the dark room, and the tins of canned rhubarb!  The layout of the hut was so naval British!

This afternoon we travelled to the furthest point south that we can go, which is probably the furthest south most people on the ship have ever been, and will never repeat again!  We all spent hours up on the bridge photographing three emperor penguins on the ice!

Tomorrow is a big day – we get to visit the US Antarctic Station McMurdo, the New Zealand Antarctic station Davis, and go visit Scott’s Discovery Hut!  In the words of Nathan the Expedition leader – “Tomorrow will be a logistical nightmare!”  Can’t wait!

Stir Crazy

Five and half days’ sailing, and everyone is getting a bit toey.  We want to land!  However, the current easterly wind pattern has prevented us from landing at any of the Ross Sea sites on the way down to Ross Island and the Ice shelf, but there is a very strong possibility we will catch them on the way back up.  

Temperatures have certainly dropped, both inside and outside the ship.  A consistent series of lectures and movies has kept everyone entertained.  The highlight for many (so I have been told) was a musical evening presented by Wiebke (pronounced Vebka) and Felicity on guitar, with those old standbies, sugar and lentil-in-a-bottle percussion.  All sorts of old favourites were brought out for a rendition, like Country Roads (with everyone), True Colours, Knights in White Satin, several of Wiebke’s excellent originals, and Flick channeling Joni Mitchell with Big Yellow Taxi, and Fleetwood Mac/Eva Cassidy with Songbird.  The chef turns out to be a drummer so was also assisting with the biscuit barrel drum.

The word is get as much sleep as you can, when you can, because time becomes nothing down here in the land of no night, so I will be expecting to be making several landings around 2am!

Several history lectures later, it has become very clear to be why Amundsen made it to the South Pole and returned successfully, and why Robert Falcon Scott didn’t!!

Antarctica - we are on our way

We have passed into the Antarctic Circle – 65 degrees latitude – the furthest south I have ever been.  I celebrated this auspicious occasion with champagne up on Deck 6, with Scott D,  and with Alla and Scott S!  A special moment indeed watching the first icebergs float past as we toast them with bubbles.

For the first time in years, the ice shelf guarding the entrance to the Ross Sea is (temporarily) gone, and we have the best opportunity to make several landings which normally would be impossible – Cape Adare, Cape Royds, and others along the coast, following a schedule which is entirely flexible and we won’t know what we can do or when we can do it until almost the last minute!  We know we will be visiting Davis Station (the NZ station), hopefully McMurdo itself (we have to drive through it to get to Scott Station), Scott’s Hut, Shackleton’s Hut, but when and which order is still to be determined.

I am looking forward to seeing my first ever colony of Emperor penguins, although after Lloyd Davis’ lecture today, I will be looking at them from a different point of view!  Whoever would have thought penguins were such sexual deviants!!

Australia Day and High Tea on the High Seas

It has been almost a dream trip sailing down to Antarctica and the Ross Sea from Macquarie Island.  In fact, apparently it has been one of the fastest trips ever!  The seas have been kind – probably making up for the diabolical first night and day of the trip out of Bluff!!

It is Australia Day – we won’t be getting fireworks this year!  However, we did get green and yellow balloons and streamers in the bar, little Australian flags as bunting, a sleep in, brunch, and High Tea on the High Seas in the afternoon!  Not a bad way to spend Australia Day.

The culmination was a quiz on Aussie slag in the bar/library.  We all had teams and got points or lost points depending on how many Australians were in the team.  My team had just me as the lone Aussie, but we had Scott D who came up with the winning team name – Vegemighties – and we had the other Scott and Alla, who came up with the most amusing alternative for a sheep shagger – one who has a close affinity with wool.  All up, the mighty Vegemighties won the quiz and shared the two bottles of house red very quickly to the sound of the looped CD of Advance Australia Fair!

Which was why we needed the two bottles!

Macca Mayhem

We are finally anchored at Macquarie Island, fondly known as “Macca” (of course, Australians have to shorten everything!), after a fairly smooth transit down from the Auckland Islands – approx. a day’s sailing.  Maybe it seems smooth because we are all getting our sea legs!  A couple of lectures down now, they appear to have gone down well, not too technical, and people are asking questions!

Another World Heritage site, Macca is the only place on the earth’s surface where mantle rocks are expose.  This is due to the Australian Tectonic Plate being subducted (sucked!) underneath the Pacific plate, and in the process a rift closed which extruded molten rock from the upper mantle to the surface.  The rocks form what is called an “ophiolite” sequence.  The island is still rising at the rate of slightly less than 1mm per year!

Today we went zodiac cruising down at Lusitania Bay (Lucy!!).  You cannot land there – in fact there are very few places you are allowed to land, and all of them are in the far north of the island.  Lucy has a large colony of King penguins, also a few Rockhoppers, and a few of the endemic penguins to Macquarie Island, the Royal penguin.

Also saw both the Northern and Southern Giant Petrel, black-browed albatross, fairy prion and light-mantled sooty albatross (told you I am becoming a bird nerd!)

In the early days, sealers exterminated the island’s population of fur seals, and nearly did the same to the elephant seals!  Then in 1870, gangs came to exploit the penguin colonies for oil.  The remains of some of the large digesters in which they boiled the penguins can still be seen at Lusitania Bay, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of penguins!  I’d say that’s karma!

Brian and Grant said today was the best day ever!

Enderby Island Sojourn

I cannot think of any reason why anyone would have wanted to settle in the Auckland Islands, but a few attempts were made in the north at Enderby Island.  They all failed!  The attempt to start up a whaling station by a 19^th century dodgy entrepreneur was foiled by poor soil conditions, and more importantly, by the relentless blustery weather!

The Auckland Islands are the dissected remains of two volcanoes.  Enderby Island is the most northern part of the group, and the only place where you can land.  There is evidence of the pyroclastic sediments, pillow basalts and extensive basalt lava flows.  The southern cliffs are stunning columnar basalt, and were the site of numerous shipwrecks in the 19^th century, probably because the islands had been plotted on the maritime charts some 35 miles away from their actual position!

The landing site at Sandy Bay is the site of a large colony of very aggressive Hooker’s Sea Lions, currently the most endangered of the 5 species of sea lion in the world.  There is a brilliant boardwalk which runs right across the island, where you can see the amazing and unusual plants that are endemic to the islands.  Of course, the day when we go it is raining, and the gusts of wind so strong that they were blowing the little people among us off the path!  Not a great idea when the path runs by the cliffs!

Also seen on our visit – the solitary yellow-eyed penguin, wandering albatross, southern royal albatross, red-crowned parakeet, New Zealand pipit, Auckland Island shag, brown teal, tomtit, skua, giant northern petrel, black-backed gull, red-billed gull, bellbird and tui.

I am becoming a bird nerd!

Evacuation on the High Seas

The injury list from the night of the Big Seas did not stop at bruises and dislocated shoulders!  Unfortunately, one of the passengers passed out on the beach on one of the shore excursions.  Her blood pressure was 60/40 which was dangerously low.  Apparently she had lost a lot of blood the night before – nobody is sure how that occurred, but the general medical consensus was that she needed to be evacuated.  It was fortunate we were at the Auckland Islands, which represented the limit of helicopter flying from New Zealand.

So two helicopters were sent from Invercargill, they took 3 hours to reach Enderby Island in the north of the Auckland group.  We were all sent on shore for another excursion whilst the staff took care of getting Winona and Vernon into the zodiacs with their luggage across to Enderby Island, only a short hop away.  By the time we had all been ferried back to the Shokalskiy by zodiac, they were well away back to Invercargill.

The latest news is that Winona is safely in hospital in Christchurch having tests to work out what went on.  Vernon and Winona, we all are very sad your trip had to end like this, and we hope all will be well.  As promised, I will make sure you get pictures, although I know Ted Cheeseman will already be onto this!

All credit to the Heritage Expeditions staff who managed this very difficult operation with a minimum of fuss and maximum efficiency!

The Boat that Rocked

24 hours of rocking and rolling on the Southern Ocean, making our way through the Roaring Forties, rock-a-bye baby it was most certainly not!  The westerly winds produced waves around 5-6 metres, sometimes more, which made for a very challenging night and day on the journey commencing from the port of Bluff in Invercargill.  We skipped the Snares and headed directly towards the Auckland Islands.  The night was challenging for everyone – just about everything that was not fastened down ended up on the floor, including some people!  A dislocated shoulder, several hits on the head (including myself), stitched on the head, numerous bruises were displayed once the ship had reached safe haven near Enderby Island in the north of the Auckland islands, around 7pm.  I was one of the many hit with a bout of sea-sickness into the bag, and acknowledge that those 24 hours were some of the most unpleasant I have ever experienced.

A good night’s sleep for everyone, staff and passengers, meant that we are all ready for our excursion onto Enderby Island tomorrow, and our first look at the Hooker’s Sea Lions and other marvels waiting for us.

Why anyone thought it was a good idea to try and form a settlement down here is anybody’s guess.  It didn’t last.

Invercargill

 

You do almost feel like you are at the end of the world in Invercargill.  A quaint city that still feels like a town, very quiet, lots of empty shops, but spotlessly clean and very efficient.  Arriving a day early was a very good idea – it was very blustery, not particularly cold, but the wind was strong enough to want to blow you in any other direction except the one in which you want to go.  The streets are like wind tunnels!  I spent all yesterday trying to finish off my lectures – 3 down, 3 to go.

 

 

 

The Kelvin Hotel rises above the rest of the buildings like one of those transformer toys – very blocky, quite old-fashioned but also quite charming in its own way.  Most of the group have arrived now – it has been great to renew friendships with Dean, who I shared a cabin with last trip to Antarctica, and with whom I will share on this trip.  I have been sharing a hotel room with Karen from San Francisco, and that has been fun.  Have caught up with the lovely Scott Davis, delighted he is on the trip, and also Laboun from Saudi Arabia.

 

 

This is my one and only opportunity to send any photos before we embark on the now notorious Akademik Shokalskiy for a month in the Sub-Antarctic islands and the Ross Sea area.  We have been told that the Ross Sea is looking the best it has for around 10 years or so, which should mean we get to do all our landings.

 

Next update hopefully will be from the ship.

 

Ahoy me hearties.

 

I can spot an elephant from 1000 paces!

On the way

Well it is around 1pm in the afternoon and I am repacking for the third time, trying to fit in all the additional things one has to take travelling these days, like several chargers, cords, computer, keyboard, iPhone, iPod, iPad, iPeripherals etc Just been texted by Air New Zealand to say the flight to Christchurch has been delayed 20 minutes – so far so good, even though the connecting time to Invercargill is pretty tight.  It has been quite stressful for all concerned getting ready for this trip on the Akademik Shokalskiy, which as most people now know, was stuck in the ice for 12 days from Xmas Day.  Fortunately she got herself out of the ice and has made very good time back to the port of Bluff in Invercargill, so that our trip can depart as planned on Saturday afternoon.

 

Of course, I invoked Murphy’s Law when I decided to hold off finishing lecture preparation – an attempt to trick fate which backfired, as now I still have no lectures completed yet, although I have pretty much all the information I need – just need to settle down to prepare the appropriate PowerPoint slides.

 

My two beautiful nieces Sally and Kate will be my housekeepers while I am away, earning extra travel money for cleaning and de-cluttering my house!  I am thrilled  as no amount of money will compensate for the great feeling of coming home to a clean and tidy house, which it certainly is not at the moment!

 

So this entry is really to test the system I have set up for sending updates from the field.  Hope it works, as  it is a bit hard to access the Internet from Antarctica, or worse, the middle of the Southern Ocean.

 

Watch this space!