Lallemand Fjord
Lat: 67°04.47’S Long: 66°46.92’W
The day starts with the lights down: low, grey cloud, rain and a thick mist as the audience waits expectantly for the play to begin: how will it all turn out? Grey-headed albatrosses wheel out of the murk: they look as lost as we are. Not an iceberg, barely a bird as we have steamed due south through grey fog. Then the first dramatic act starts: the curtain rises suddenly in the west as a gold spotlight strikes a marching army of icebergs at the tip of Adelaide Island. A rush of cold air as the curtain lifts further: now we are steaming into a flotilla of tiny bergs, the flagship a stately galleon of blue and mauve which we pass to starboard, close enough to see a pair of Brown Skuas keeping watch from its bridge wing. Suddenly the first act goes into overdrive: penguins are leaping abeam; fur seals rear up from their icefloe liloes to stare at us. An Antarctic Tern sweeps alongside, setting off a Snow Petrel from the ice galleon we are passing. “Whales!” someone shouts, as the telltale puff of surfacing humpbacks shows suddenly a mile off to port. “No – closer, on this side!” A swirl in the water close among the icefloes and up comes the hooked black thorn of a Minke Whale speeding away from us. Penguins, petrels, seals and whales: our necks corkscrew. But now a drama is being played out on the bridge, for the voice of God announces “66 degrees, 33 minutes South…” We have crossed the Antarctic Circle, a quest we had forgotten during the flurry of wildlife among the icebergs. But now an unforgiving barricade of icebergs thwarts us. Over lunch the captain considers the charts: let us try Lallemand Fjord.
Fortune favors the brave: a detour to the east and at a steady 12 knots he skillfully weaves through floating ice boulders to a golden land that beckons us at the end of the inlet. In the heroic final act the wind drops, the water calms to a gilded mirror, the last veils are drawn from soaring mountains to reveal blue sky over a pristine crystal kingdom. Without a pause the captain sails us gently into the edge of the fast ice until we come to silent, safe haven. Everyone looks at each other with huge grins: is this real? A gangway is lowered and we walk out into wild Antarctica, like a string of émigré Emperors, plodding into a silent landscape mantled in white. This is the furthest south Endeavour has reached this season: 67 degrees 04 minutes, and we have walked a mile beyond that! To cap an unbelievable day we return to the edge of our ice dock, and the challenge rings out: dare we swim? 67 degrees south, 31 degrees Fahrenheit who dare swims: to cheers from fellow penguins into black water 2,000 meters deep in search of the Ultimate Thrill, Euphoria superba. Just the start of our expedition at the end of the world.
Lat: 67°04.47’S Long: 66°46.92’W
The day starts with the lights down: low, grey cloud, rain and a thick mist as the audience waits expectantly for the play to begin: how will it all turn out? Grey-headed albatrosses wheel out of the murk: they look as lost as we are. Not an iceberg, barely a bird as we have steamed due south through grey fog. Then the first dramatic act starts: the curtain rises suddenly in the west as a gold spotlight strikes a marching army of icebergs at the tip of Adelaide Island. A rush of cold air as the curtain lifts further: now we are steaming into a flotilla of tiny bergs, the flagship a stately galleon of blue and mauve which we pass to starboard, close enough to see a pair of Brown Skuas keeping watch from its bridge wing. Suddenly the first act goes into overdrive: penguins are leaping abeam; fur seals rear up from their icefloe liloes to stare at us. An Antarctic Tern sweeps alongside, setting off a Snow Petrel from the ice galleon we are passing. “Whales!” someone shouts, as the telltale puff of surfacing humpbacks shows suddenly a mile off to port. “No – closer, on this side!” A swirl in the water close among the icefloes and up comes the hooked black thorn of a Minke Whale speeding away from us. Penguins, petrels, seals and whales: our necks corkscrew. But now a drama is being played out on the bridge, for the voice of God announces “66 degrees, 33 minutes South…” We have crossed the Antarctic Circle, a quest we had forgotten during the flurry of wildlife among the icebergs. But now an unforgiving barricade of icebergs thwarts us. Over lunch the captain considers the charts: let us try Lallemand Fjord.
Fortune favors the brave: a detour to the east and at a steady 12 knots he skillfully weaves through floating ice boulders to a golden land that beckons us at the end of the inlet. In the heroic final act the wind drops, the water calms to a gilded mirror, the last veils are drawn from soaring mountains to reveal blue sky over a pristine crystal kingdom. Without a pause the captain sails us gently into the edge of the fast ice until we come to silent, safe haven. Everyone looks at each other with huge grins: is this real? A gangway is lowered and we walk out into wild Antarctica, like a string of émigré Emperors, plodding into a silent landscape mantled in white. This is the furthest south Endeavour has reached this season: 67 degrees 04 minutes, and we have walked a mile beyond that! To cap an unbelievable day we return to the edge of our ice dock, and the challenge rings out: dare we swim? 67 degrees south, 31 degrees Fahrenheit who dare swims: to cheers from fellow penguins into black water 2,000 meters deep in search of the Ultimate Thrill, Euphoria superba. Just the start of our expedition at the end of the world.
