Furthest South: 67º 10.50’S, Lallemand Fjord, inside Antarctic Circle
When our expedition leader announced last night that we would try for the Antarctic Circle there was a round of spontaneous applause. It was to presage a day none of us will forget.
0600 Call to the bridge by Matt. Thick clouds and a rolling sea in Matha Strait, Adelaide Island to starboard. 66º31’...66º32’.... As we sweep over 66º33’S latitude into the magic circle, the grey curtain of cloud is shred and fled, to reveal a fairytale landscape beyond all dreams. Huge tabular icebergs with lilac cliffs, bobbing blue ice barrels and crackling ice crispies. With the clear sky comes an avenging wind off the frozen mountains of the Peninsula, whipping the sea into a froth. These are the dreaded katabatic winds, kamikazi blasts that patrol the Antarctic frontier, unforgiving border guards.
1100 Into the tranquil waters of Crystal Sound. Perfect. Just the sound of crystals, sun glinting off frozen snowfields to left and right as we try to thread the eye of the needle: The Gunnel. The tightest squeeze in the Peninsula, a pinch point where two glaciers slug it out beneath sawtooth mountains whittled by katabatics to razorsharp ridges. We are through! It is a record for the ship this season, gateway to a pastel world where crabeater, leopard and fur seals laze on lilypad icefloes, while flocks of gulls pick planktonic morsels from the silvered sea.
1400 Steaming northeast under blue skies, weaving through icecastles with deep blue grottoes, making for a landfall on the Arrowsmith Peninsula. Glittering flotillas of ice, snow petrels swooping among the white ice turrets. Zodiacs down off Detaille Island; bundled up in fleece and parka we take to the water to look at an old British Base. Squat wooden huts, bleached like bones from sun and wind. Where heaving swells break, sleek Adelie penguins leap from the wind-whipped sea onto black basalt.
1700 Up anchor: adventure calls. Our captain knows a secret place and during dinner brings us to the promised land of Lallemand Fjord. He runs the ship neatly into a solid dock of fast ice, and all is suddenly still.
2200 We step ashore onto a thin skin of frozen sea and are now walking on water: 1600’ of black water beneath a thin pane of ocean. We stride out on ice, to pause at furthest south: 67º 10.50’, unbeaten this season. But the day is not over: for we have spotted the holy grail of polar pilgrims: a pair of emperor penguins standing on the edge of the fast ice, just a quarter mile from our ice berth .
2400 Endeavour creeps toward them until we are looking down on the perfect couple, their steel and lemon coats gleaming in the midnight light. Crabeater seals race along the ice edge and burst out of the water to do wheelies on the snow, but nothing can distract emperor and empress as they snuggle and preen beneath our spellbound gaze, oblivious to the click and whirr of the enchanted paparazzi.
When our expedition leader announced last night that we would try for the Antarctic Circle there was a round of spontaneous applause. It was to presage a day none of us will forget.
0600 Call to the bridge by Matt. Thick clouds and a rolling sea in Matha Strait, Adelaide Island to starboard. 66º31’...66º32’.... As we sweep over 66º33’S latitude into the magic circle, the grey curtain of cloud is shred and fled, to reveal a fairytale landscape beyond all dreams. Huge tabular icebergs with lilac cliffs, bobbing blue ice barrels and crackling ice crispies. With the clear sky comes an avenging wind off the frozen mountains of the Peninsula, whipping the sea into a froth. These are the dreaded katabatic winds, kamikazi blasts that patrol the Antarctic frontier, unforgiving border guards.
1100 Into the tranquil waters of Crystal Sound. Perfect. Just the sound of crystals, sun glinting off frozen snowfields to left and right as we try to thread the eye of the needle: The Gunnel. The tightest squeeze in the Peninsula, a pinch point where two glaciers slug it out beneath sawtooth mountains whittled by katabatics to razorsharp ridges. We are through! It is a record for the ship this season, gateway to a pastel world where crabeater, leopard and fur seals laze on lilypad icefloes, while flocks of gulls pick planktonic morsels from the silvered sea.
1400 Steaming northeast under blue skies, weaving through icecastles with deep blue grottoes, making for a landfall on the Arrowsmith Peninsula. Glittering flotillas of ice, snow petrels swooping among the white ice turrets. Zodiacs down off Detaille Island; bundled up in fleece and parka we take to the water to look at an old British Base. Squat wooden huts, bleached like bones from sun and wind. Where heaving swells break, sleek Adelie penguins leap from the wind-whipped sea onto black basalt.
1700 Up anchor: adventure calls. Our captain knows a secret place and during dinner brings us to the promised land of Lallemand Fjord. He runs the ship neatly into a solid dock of fast ice, and all is suddenly still.
2200 We step ashore onto a thin skin of frozen sea and are now walking on water: 1600’ of black water beneath a thin pane of ocean. We stride out on ice, to pause at furthest south: 67º 10.50’, unbeaten this season. But the day is not over: for we have spotted the holy grail of polar pilgrims: a pair of emperor penguins standing on the edge of the fast ice, just a quarter mile from our ice berth .
2400 Endeavour creeps toward them until we are looking down on the perfect couple, their steel and lemon coats gleaming in the midnight light. Crabeater seals race along the ice edge and burst out of the water to do wheelies on the snow, but nothing can distract emperor and empress as they snuggle and preen beneath our spellbound gaze, oblivious to the click and whirr of the enchanted paparazzi.
