Next morning we pressed on south and reached our southernmost point on Andersen Island at 66 52 2 - at this point had anything gone wrong, the nearest ship was 2 days sailing away !! – a sobering thought – but I loved its remoteness.
We spent the morning in zodiacs watching the wildlife and exploring the coastline in order to find somewhere to land on the continent. Due to sheer size of the ice sheet it is very difficult to set your foot on the actual Antarctic continent itself and until this point we had always landed on offshore islands, but on 2nd Jan at 66 01 7 S and 65 20 6 w, we set foot on the continent of Antarctica at an unnamed point. So I could now bag all 7 continents, need to do the moon next.
This was interrupted by our first sighting of a leopard seal; these eat penguins and hang around colonies on ice floes. We had to use the zodiacs to push through small bergs and dense brash ice to get close to this one. He was not bothered by us at all. We were wary of him, only a few metres away, but they have only ever killed one person, but Martin says they intimidate divers, as they are 4m in length, weigh a tonne and move so quickly. To me he looked serpent like and menacing, but he rolled over and basked in the sunshine. Like buses, when one comes along … for the next few days we couldn’t turn without seeing yet another one.
The fun continued when the ship crashed into a football pitch sized piece of floating sea ice (deliberately) trying to break it as it was blocking our channel, and if we could break it it would save about 10 hours sailing time. We tried three times, and failed. So having tested its strength we decided to get of and walk on it. It had a small colony of seals who were unperturbed by our presence and our snowball fight, we built a snowman. Eva the bar person brought a bottle of scotch along, and so we had it over very fresh polar ice!!! This trip is a non stop series of highs and excitement. Even the expedition team are saying that we have some amazing things, as none of them had walked on floating ice sheet since 1999. We have been so lucky (again and again).
Next excitement was a landing at the Vernadsky Station – a Ukrainian polar research base. It used to be British but we sold it for £1 10 years ago – obviously yet another labour party triumph !!! It used to be called Faraday and was where the Brits alerted the world to the presence of a hole in the ozone layer. We had a tour of the very modern base and had our passports stamped which was unnecessary but fun. However, then came a real memorable moment – a new way of drinking vodka!
Recipe
Take a shot glass of ice cold vodka (freezer will do, no need for an iceberg, also they had distilled their own – this is not necessary!)
Take a half slice of fresh orange (where they got this from who knows?), dip one side in sugar, the other in cheap instant coffee granules / powder.
Down vodka in one, suck on orange.
Sounds disgusting – it was amazing – I had two!
Heading north again through the Leamiare channel we had fantastic weather and perfect zodiac weather and so we spent 4 hours or so, in our small rubber zodiacs, inches above the water, playing about in boats – watching seals, penguins, icebergs, birds and the scenery. The perfect afternoon was completed when all five zodiacs met up to enjoy some Sauvignon Blanc in the middle of the channel – perfect.
One night we had a barbecue on the bow of the boat – which was fun and freezing!!!! – The argentine chefs doing their best to re-create an Asado.
Further stops at Neko harbour, Useful Island and Portal Point and the trip was drawing to a close. However. our sightings of whales was pretty poor, we had even pursued a few in the zodiacs but they had got away – but that was about to change.
We spent the morning in zodiacs watching the wildlife and exploring the coastline in order to find somewhere to land on the continent. Due to sheer size of the ice sheet it is very difficult to set your foot on the actual Antarctic continent itself and until this point we had always landed on offshore islands, but on 2nd Jan at 66 01 7 S and 65 20 6 w, we set foot on the continent of Antarctica at an unnamed point. So I could now bag all 7 continents, need to do the moon next.
This was interrupted by our first sighting of a leopard seal; these eat penguins and hang around colonies on ice floes. We had to use the zodiacs to push through small bergs and dense brash ice to get close to this one. He was not bothered by us at all. We were wary of him, only a few metres away, but they have only ever killed one person, but Martin says they intimidate divers, as they are 4m in length, weigh a tonne and move so quickly. To me he looked serpent like and menacing, but he rolled over and basked in the sunshine. Like buses, when one comes along … for the next few days we couldn’t turn without seeing yet another one.
The fun continued when the ship crashed into a football pitch sized piece of floating sea ice (deliberately) trying to break it as it was blocking our channel, and if we could break it it would save about 10 hours sailing time. We tried three times, and failed. So having tested its strength we decided to get of and walk on it. It had a small colony of seals who were unperturbed by our presence and our snowball fight, we built a snowman. Eva the bar person brought a bottle of scotch along, and so we had it over very fresh polar ice!!! This trip is a non stop series of highs and excitement. Even the expedition team are saying that we have some amazing things, as none of them had walked on floating ice sheet since 1999. We have been so lucky (again and again).
Next excitement was a landing at the Vernadsky Station – a Ukrainian polar research base. It used to be British but we sold it for £1 10 years ago – obviously yet another labour party triumph !!! It used to be called Faraday and was where the Brits alerted the world to the presence of a hole in the ozone layer. We had a tour of the very modern base and had our passports stamped which was unnecessary but fun. However, then came a real memorable moment – a new way of drinking vodka!
Recipe
Take a shot glass of ice cold vodka (freezer will do, no need for an iceberg, also they had distilled their own – this is not necessary!)
Take a half slice of fresh orange (where they got this from who knows?), dip one side in sugar, the other in cheap instant coffee granules / powder.
Down vodka in one, suck on orange.
Sounds disgusting – it was amazing – I had two!
Heading north again through the Leamiare channel we had fantastic weather and perfect zodiac weather and so we spent 4 hours or so, in our small rubber zodiacs, inches above the water, playing about in boats – watching seals, penguins, icebergs, birds and the scenery. The perfect afternoon was completed when all five zodiacs met up to enjoy some Sauvignon Blanc in the middle of the channel – perfect.
One night we had a barbecue on the bow of the boat – which was fun and freezing!!!! – The argentine chefs doing their best to re-create an Asado.
Further stops at Neko harbour, Useful Island and Portal Point and the trip was drawing to a close. However. our sightings of whales was pretty poor, we had even pursued a few in the zodiacs but they had got away – but that was about to change.
