Coming soon to a forum near you, Ross Sea Expedition onboard The World

[bPeteb]

With Rob in charge we also had the guy who sets the time limits so we headed off in search of seals and anything else. Found some very cool seals and got better pictures of them than the emperors.







Al and seal

It was a fantastic afternoon and Rob and Graeme were terrific.



We pushed out through some serious pack us as we left Coulman Island. The expedition dvd that we were given on the last night shows how thick it really was.

Evening briefing gave the first indication that the weather and ice were conspiring against us and the visit to McMurdo, the bases and the huts, was starting to look unlikely. We can only hope that the cracks that have formed in the fast ice down there continue to grow. Tomorrow we’re scheduled to visit Mario Zucchelli Station in Terra Nova Bay. They’ve advised Rob that they’re behind with the offloading of their supply ship so the time may slip.

Prime Rib night at Marina, something we’ve avoided previously. So far we’d been choosing small cuts of steak – 6 and 8 oz. Prime rib night features the 32 oz King’s cut and the 16 oz Queen’s cut. Same steak, just cut into two thinner ones for the Queen’s. Ben eventually convinced us the King’s was the way to go and that anything left over could be taken back to the apartment for sandwiches tomorrow.




We didn’t have any leftovers. Delicious! How they can cook steak as well as they do without open flame is still beyond me.

 

[bPeteb]

Question to mods - is there a limit on number of photos I can post? Total of space maybe? 'm just getting red crosses now when I try to upload now.

 

[RB]

Question to mods - is there a limit on number of photos I can post? Total of space maybe? 'm just getting red crosses now when I try to upload now.

I think I have been limited to 5 photos per post. I think DrRon has a way around it

 

[Pushka]

I think I have been limited to 5 photos per post. I think DrRon has a way around it

Indeed. He's very clever.

 

[Bindibuys]

These are the instructions that JohnM gave me:

“Just start a new document in MS Word. Insert picture, hit the spacebar to get a little horizontal separation and resize to about 7.8 cm wide, which gives you two pics side-by-side. Do that three times and you have a block of six pics.

Then open the MS Snipping Tool (it's part of Windows but can be a bit obscure to access - but once you've got it, pin it to the task bar.)

Take a snip of the aggregated pic and, hey presto, you have a single .jpg of the lot. Save it and then post away.”

 

[bPeteb]

The five per post I'm ok with. I actually can't post anything at all! I'll have another go once we've got all our cold gear sealed into their space bags and our bags or away.

 

[Major]

I think the red cross means that the photo is too big and you need to reduce the size on your camera settings

 

[bPeteb]

Yeh, not that either Major. I only post resized photos. They're 200kb-ish I'll try again and see what happens.

 

[bPeteb]

They'd told us during the nightly recap that hope was to get us ashore onto the fast ice at about midnight but despite their best efforts, they couldn’t find any.
It had all been blown out like it had been at Cape Roget.

There was mention of making sure we went outside in the early morning to catch the midnight sun and so that's what we did. It was cold up there but gee it was stunning.







Mount Erebus and Scott Island. Behind it McMurdo Sound. So near and yet so far...

 

[bPeteb]

Tuesday January 24
Temp 0C. Seas 0.1-0.5 metres. Position at 11:50am 74 41’ S 164 33’ E. At 15:06 we were at 75 16’ S and the outside temp was 3C!

We woke up to find ourselves in Terra Nova Bay in preparation to visit the Italian station but the offloading is still behind so they asked us to come back tomorrow.






The spectacular (yep, that world again) Mount Melbourne in the distance. It's classed as a dormant volcano.





Out on the zodiacs we went, with Kim again, and we had a beautiful hour or so cruising along the edge of the Campbell Glacier Ice Tongue.

 

[bPeteb]

Huge caves carved out of the bottom of the sheer cliffs of ice, penguins dolphining (apparently 'porpoising' is so 2016) along the surface, more penguins sitting up on the pack ice, spectacular sparkling icicles

View attachment 90682



and flocks of beautiful snowy Antarctic petrels gliding around the peaks of the giant bergs.

 

[bPeteb]

We then sailed for the Drygalski Ice Tongue. It juts 30 nautical miles out into the sea and the plan was to sail along and around it then stay overnight in the lee of the massive sheet of ice before returning to Terra Nova in the early morning.



We were both up on deck 12 freezing our extremities off. I’d just taken a panorama of a long length of the ‘tongue’ and had started to walk up towards the bow when Al shouted for me to come back quick.



A huge length of the ice sheet had calved off. We were later told 900 metres! I saw the last of it hitting the water and the clouds of spray that were rising out from the jumble of crashing ice.







It rolled and churned and was just incredible. Katja managed to take a burst of shots as it dropped down into the sea. Wow!!! A once in a lifetime experience.

 

[bPeteb]

The pack ice was against us again. Not far from where the calving had occurred we got to the end of the ‘tongue’, where the temp had dropped to -4C, and the pack ice stretched out in front of the ship.







It was too risky taking us in there in case the wind came up from the south and locked us in so we turned back and hooked out into the Ross Sea for a leisurely loop back to Terra Nova Bay.



All that's left of 900 metres of ice that calved just an hour or so ago



It's about that light, and the watercolour painted mountains.

Dinner in Marina again. Half rack of lamb and blue-eyed trevalla.

 

[bPeteb]

Wednesday January 25
Temp 0C. Position at 08:00 74 41’ S 164 07’ E.

We rolled up the blind and straight in front of us was the first ship, and people, we’d seen since leaving Hobart. The Italian supply ship Italica was maybe a few hundred metres away and they appeared to be loading containers on to the ship, not off.



As nothing can be disposed of on Antarctica we can only presume it was waste material/products from the base that couldn’t be incinerated.

The base wanted us in groups of 25 so we went down to the Town Square to get tickets for the zodiacs. The whole process was a bit chaotic as the Italians still weren’t quite ready. The first group got away nearly an hour late. Much grumbling could be heard amongst the residents but we were in the hands of our hosts. And what gracious host they were.

I’m not sure what time our group, number three, went over but the weather was spectacular and the two station hosts were wonderful.







They explained the workings of the base as we strolled around.

 

[bPeteb]

Some old modules from an earlier base.



A hut built with timber from the very first Italian base and a memorial to Mario Zucchelli. Now used as the waiting room for helicopter flights.

 

[bPeteb]

We were shown into their rec building where we were offered real Italian coffee and biscuits.





They have a quite bizarre electric chair. It had cables running into it, and a strategically placed 'flap' of copper, but looked more like something that’s plugged in when the grappa has been flowing for a while.



Luckily for me it wasn't plugged in...

 

[bPeteb]

At the top of the landing ramp was emperor number three, a juvenile that was finishing its moult. After the obligatory photo stop we went back out to the ship.



The weather was glorious while we were ashore. Everyone was removing layers one by one as 0 degrees doesn’t seen at all cold in brilliant sunshine and with no wind.

Saying that, everything was back on and zipped up for the zodiac back to the ship.

 

[bPeteb]

We grabbed a quick bite for lunch. The phone rang minutes after we got back to the apartment. It was Suzanne from the gym asking if we were interested in going kayaking and if we were, could we be down in Marina in 10 minutes. Um yes, and yes. We both that if we said no now we might not get another opportunity. This turned out to be a very wise decision.

We were there in less than 10, were helped into our dry suits



and in less than 30 minutes were headed down the coast in a zodiac to where the kayaks had been taken. I’d only ever gotten into a kayak from the shore, so climbing into one being held between two zodiacs was a tad scary but we both got in without testing our dry suits.

I’d like to thank our Expedition Doctor Andrew Peacock for four of the kayaking images that I’ve shared. Andrew’s photos are amazing! Andrew’s photos can be found on Facebook and Instagram under Footloosefotography - www.facebook.com/footloosefotography and www.instagram.com/footloosefotography


photo courtesy of Andrew Peacock

What a fantastic experience! We’d bought a Sony FDR 3000 action-cam before we came away for exactly this. I think that we’d both pictured ourselves paddling though more small pack ice but giant icebergs, dolphining penguins and amazing basalt and granite cliffs would have to suffice.




photo courtesy of Andrew Peacock


photo courtesy of Andrew Peacock

As we were paddling back some loaded zodiacs went zooming past heading south. It turned out that on top of kayaking, a hike option had been added to the afternoon’s activities.

 

[bPeteb]

The ship hoisted anchor and we sailed slowly a couple of kilometres down the coast from Zucchelli to where the hikers had landed. Two visits to the continent in one day! No way that we weren’t going to do whatever hike was available.



An interesting landing with all hands ‘on rock’ to get us off the zodiac and up across the boulders. Once there it was snow all the way up the hill.



Peter McCarthy, the NZ historian and ex-Ross Base logistics manager, asked us what we wanted to do and we said go as far as we could. He pointed out the path people were taking and walked most of the way with us.



We eventually caught up with Graeme Ayres and hiked to the highest point.



It would have been just short of an hour. I was down to just a thermal top by the time I reached the end of the climb. What a spectacular view in all directions.

 

[bPeteb]

A quick return down to the landing site and the ship sailed for Inexpressible Island and Cape Russell. The plan was a landing on the pebbled beach of Inexpressible and then scenic cruising of Cape Russell later in the evening. As we rounded Cape Russell a katabatic wind came howling down off the plateau.



Rob announced that the wind was too strong for a landing and that it would just be scenic cruising for the evening.

We had front row seats from our table in East of the whirling winds.



The snow formed curling waves of white as it was whipped up from the ice sheet at the head of the bay. Inexpressible Island looked horribly cold and desolate. Just as it must have been for Scott’s northern party who had to winter here in an ice cave in 1912.

Anchored in the bay off the beach was a small expedition ship. I couldn’t read the name apart from Kaptain or Kapitan but it turned out to be what is now known as the Spirit of Enderby.



Compared to us it was TINY (The World is 43,000t after all). This ship was one Al and I had looked at as a comparison to what we’re doing on The World. Itinerary comparison yes, but nothing else. Katja later told us that she had worked on it last year and said that it bobbed around like a Tupperware bowl! Yuk!

Even worse, no private bathrooms!!!!

Looking at the grim beach where those six had survived over winter was a sobering end to a brilliant day.

Not sobering enough to stop us calling by the bar and discovering a new favourite - rose champagne