Port Lockroy, Weincke Island, Antarctica
This morning found us heading towards our last anchorage in the Antarctic Peninsula area, the site of an important British Antarctica Station now maintained as a museum. We arrived mid-morning beneath beautiful blue skies and towering snow and ice capped peaks. A stiff breeze lent a suitable Christmas chill to the air as we explored the area via numerous Zodiac trips between points of interest: Jougla Point, the site of a shore-based whaling station at the turn of the century and now a thriving gentoo penguin colony with smaller numbers of nesting blue-eyed shags; and Goudier Island, a low, rounded hummock of rock where the British Antarctic Survey set up a research station and conducted Operation Tabarin in the 1940’s. It is also the site of the first studies of the ozone layer above Antarctica and data from that period has served as a baseline for more recent studies that have showed seasonal thinning of the layer and the development of the famous ozone hole each winter.
Ice bergs added an exciting dimension to the cruises as well. One featured deep parallel trenches across its intricately pitted upper surface, and another larger berg that broke apart and rolled over, exposing a blue interior that rivaled the blue skies above us.
This morning found us heading towards our last anchorage in the Antarctic Peninsula area, the site of an important British Antarctica Station now maintained as a museum. We arrived mid-morning beneath beautiful blue skies and towering snow and ice capped peaks. A stiff breeze lent a suitable Christmas chill to the air as we explored the area via numerous Zodiac trips between points of interest: Jougla Point, the site of a shore-based whaling station at the turn of the century and now a thriving gentoo penguin colony with smaller numbers of nesting blue-eyed shags; and Goudier Island, a low, rounded hummock of rock where the British Antarctic Survey set up a research station and conducted Operation Tabarin in the 1940’s. It is also the site of the first studies of the ozone layer above Antarctica and data from that period has served as a baseline for more recent studies that have showed seasonal thinning of the layer and the development of the famous ozone hole each winter.
Ice bergs added an exciting dimension to the cruises as well. One featured deep parallel trenches across its intricately pitted upper surface, and another larger berg that broke apart and rolled over, exposing a blue interior that rivaled the blue skies above us.
