The Great Katabatic Experience

                               

After staying in a holding pattern around Franklin Island, the katabatic winds prevented us from attempting a safe landing, so off we sailed north to the Drygalski Ice Tongue. 

Wind is a constant feature in Antarctica – many of the rocks show intense weathering from wind erosion, as does my face after I have been outside for any great length of time in the Antarctic cold!  Katabatic winds originate from the Polar Plateau, where the Transantarctic Mountains which split Antarctica into East and West are found.  They form when cold, dense air slides off the icecap under the influence of gravity, and can reach up to 150km/hour!  We certainly felt them coming off the land – one side of the ship was frozen very quickly, with icicles forming on the railings and the portholes.

Those adventurous enough (or foolhardy, depending on how you look at it) to venture outside found themselves hanging onto the railings for fear of being blown across the deck and over the railings on the other side!

Just as quickly as these katabatic winds arrive, they can dissipate, and by the time we reached the Drygalski Ice Tongue (DIT) at around 7am, the sun was out, the sky nearly cloudless and the seas gentle.  A stark contrast to the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS), the DIT represents a tongue of ice protruding into the sea at the termination of a glacier on the coastline.  It is much more rugged looking than the RIS, with lots of bits looking like they are very ready to break off into icebergs.

During the night, the katabatic winds rose again, and although the night’s sleep was good, I could hear the wind howling through the porthole, and in the morning the glass was coated with tiny ice crystals.  An effective way for facial dermabrasion, if I had thought of it earlier!

The Ross Ice Shelf

               

Penguins are very curious birds – one of the Adelies at Cape Bird seemed determined to come back to the ship after our visit – he jumped right out of the water onto the bow of Nigel’s zodiac.  He needed some encouragement to get back into the water, but was not content to stay there, as soon afterwards was seen jumping onto the bow of Mike’s zodiac!  It was the culmination of a great afternoon at Cape Bird, notwithstanding the big swell which had developed just as we were all trying to get into the zodiacs for the return to the ship.  I do believe some people were swamped!

A 2am wakeup call saw most of us up on the bridge (in broad daylight, or so it seemed) to view the immense Ross Ice Shelf.  It is the largest ice shelf in the world, bigger than France, about the size of Texas!  It floats!  The bridge is about 50 feet (20 metres) above sea level - where we first started cruising along, we were slightly above the level of the shelf, and it is very, very flat.  Moving deeper across the shelf, the height of the ice increased so that it was above the height of the ship!  So that means the shelf is up to 350 metres or 1,150 feet thick!!  You can imagine the explorers coming down into the Ross Sea, encountering the ice shelf, sailing for days along its margin trying to find a way through, and finally realising there wasn’t one! 

The captain has marked a new line on his map showing where the current line of the shelf is, which apparently is currently quite different from the original!

The Ross Ice Shelf is simply awesome!

Cape Royds and Cape Bird

               

I had a great night’s sleep last night.  Many of the team did not, as they went out after our busy day at around 10pm to climb Observation Point, the big hill between McMurdo Station and Scott Base.  My knees, which have been going really, really well, told me that it would be pushing it for me to do this particular hike, as it is up a very, very steep incline with switchbacks and plenty of scree to deal with downhill.

Just as well, as everyone apparently had a race up the hill!

During the night we made our way around Ross Island to Cape Royds, which is where Shackleton’s Nimrod Hut is located, as well as the most southern Adelie penguin rookery.  The weather apparently had been a bit dodgy in the “night” with katabatic winds sweeping past, bringing lots of small pieces of brash ice with it.  We had the option of two landings, depending on the weather.  The first, in Black Sands Beach, required a wet landing and a 40 minute hike over the basalt hills to the hut.  The second option was a landing in Back Door Bay, with a 15 minute walk to the hut.  Fortunately we were able to do the latter, and as it had been snowing, there was a light crust of snow on the ground which actually helped with the walking.

More about Shackleton’s Hut later, the landing was amazing, and highlighted at the end by a couple of huge leopard seals who decided to laze about on a small iceberg in the bay.

Immediately after lunch we set off for Cape Bird, the site of 3 large Adelie penguin rookeries.  We have just got back from this landing, which in itself was a challenge, with quite a swell onto the beach covered by lots of ice fragments.  It was cool to walk among the penguins, who have plenty of large chicks at the moment.

It will be hard to beat this, but I am sure the team are working on it!  Hard to believe we are only half way through the trip!

Science is alive and well in Antarctica

               

Today on the last day of January 2014, we snuck into the US Antarctic Base McMurdo Station, just before the ship arrived to resupply/redeploy.  The timing was fortunate, and we were all very excited to catch a glimpse of life on this gigantic science station.  The ice this year is so lean that they have been having a few problems with the ice runway!

We saw the Science Laboratory, National Science Foundation Chalet, with all the flags and the bust of Byrd outside, the Chapel of the Snows, the General Store (with ATM), the MacOps centre where the call centre, air traffic management and weather station are located, and finally coffee and yummy cookies in the Coffee House, which was the original building at the station and is an old aircraft half cylinder galvanised iron building (can’t remember what they are called!)

After lunch back on the ship we sailed on round Observation Point to the New Zealand Antarctic Station at Scott Base.  This is significant!  Apparently this is the first time in anyone’s knowledge that a ship has been able to sail into Scott Base.  Usually the ice is so packed in, the original plan was to zodiac back to the McMurdo landing, and drive over to the base.  We believe the Akademik Shokalskiy has sailed further south now than any other ship in memory!

Scott Base is like the small boutique station compared to the huge metropolis of McMurdo.  They all utilise each other’s services, but they are polar opposites (pun intended) as to how they operate.  McM is very regimented, Scott Base very typically laid back.

A great day was completed with a quick visit back to McMurdo to visit the currently-undergoing-restoration Scott’s Discovery Hut at Hut Point.  It looks just like an Australian outback house with the verandah surrounding all sides – in fact it did originally come from Australia.

Fortunately they will be keeping the wood a natural colour.  Scott Base buildings are all painted a very bright hospital green – must have had a sale on paint!  However they did redeem themselves by providing yummy scones for us for afternoon tea!

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!!