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

[bPeteb]

Saturday January 21
We crossed the ‘true’ Antarctic Circle last night – 66 33’46.5 degrees South

Seas 2.5-4 metres. Position at 10:05AM 67 35’ S 165 36’ E. Course 142. Speed 9.3 knots. Outside temp -1C

Lots of icebergs today. Seas were rough.







Lecture by Dr John French – World Firsts in Southern Ocean Cloud Measurements. Watched from the room. The most enthusiastic lecturer ever! John explained the equipment that was installed on the forward mast of the ship in Hobart that will be used to measure clouds while we travel south. One of the residents has funded the equipment and installation and it will remain on the ship going forward. It records to an SD card and periodically the crew will take it out and send it to John. He said that it would easily be possible to move the storage ‘inside’ the ship so that retrieval of the data didn’t involve getting up on the mast.

Lecture by Jessica Farrar – Seals of the Ross Sea. Really interesting lecture on how they hunt in the dark of winter. How do they manage to survive birth on the ice sheets and fast ice.

Dinner at Marina. More steak! Excellent meal again.

Shortest Night Celebration up on Deck 12 at just after midnight. About 20 hardy souls met up on Deck 12 to toast the shortest night.





The sun went down not long after midnight but it didn’t go dark before it came back up at about 01:30. We had a couple of warm alcoholic drinks and ended up being only two of only three who remained out until after 1. By that time clouds lined the horizon and we didn’t even see the darned sun come back up!

 

[bPeteb]

Sunday January 22
Seas 2.5-4 metres. Position at 10:32 71 05’ S 170 26’ E. Course 180. Speed 9 knots. Outside temp -1C

First landing day!!

We switched the tv on and directly in front of us is land!!



Outside it’s cold, but the sky is an amazing blue. Everyone who has been to Antarctica talks about the light down here and it’s true. The humongous mountain ranges in the distance look like they have been painted.







Lecture by Rex Hendry – Race to the Pole. A comparison of Scott’s ill-fated expedition and Amundsen’s successful one. Rex has a very easy relaxed presentation style, even if he does have a really strong kiwi accent Scott was never going to succeed and Amundsen always was.

Gigantic tabular bergs around us as we came into the bay in front of the Cape Adare ‘spit’.

 

[bPeteb]

Then bits of broken pack ice started floating past covered in masses of Adélie penguins.







It was so fantastic. We could see the hundreds of thousands of penguins on the spit and leading up the perilous cliffside.

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There are close to 600,000.

They sent the fast rescue boat, and then zodiacs, to look for a landing site on the pebble shore but it eventually became obvious that they weren’t having any luck.



There was too much large broken up pack ice along the beach. Some of the pieces looked small but of course it’s what’s under the water that makes them so dangerous. And so it came to pass that we would not be landing on Cape Adare to meet the penguins and visit the Borchgrevink and Scott Northern Party huts.

 

[bPeteb]

The zodiac cruise was BRILLIANT. Penguins everywhere.











One jumped up onto the pontoon of the zodiac right beside Al. We were both so shocked that neither of us managed to get a picture before the little fella dived back into the water. One zodiac had five jump in during their hour or so out on the water.

 

[bPeteb]

We got close enough to the shore to get some ok photos of the huts and the masses of both baby and adult penguins.


Too much ice close to the shore. We did ask if they would do a dump and run but the answer was no...




The ruin of the English hut to the left. The older Scandinavian hut to the right.


Borchgrevink's hut. All of the contents are currently at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch being preserved. Once that's done they'll be returned to the hut and put back exactly where they were.

 

[bPeteb]

We started to see a few dead penguins in the water and then some skuas hoeing into the remains of another one.







Katja later said that the penguins often get crushed between the chunks of pack ice that are constantly crashing on to the beach.





Then the skuas have a free dinner.

 

[bPeteb]

Some more penguin pictures because I don't think there's such a thing as too many





Sadly we couldn’t stay and after an amazing few hours we left Cape Adare for tomorrow’s destination Cape Hallett.


The 'ninjas' loading the zodiacs after an amazing first day


Spectacular scenery around Robertson Bay


Like they kept telling us, the light was amazing

 

[bPeteb]

On the cruise away from Adare we passed a lot of pack ice off on the port side and then eventually sailed through it.









It’s quite something to watch it get pushed away from the ship and then pass along below the balcony.



Dinner at East. Delicious, as usual.

 

[bPeteb]

One of the rare food pictures. Sushi from East

Scenery on the way to Cape Roget

 

[bPeteb]

Then it was back out on the zodiacs off Cape Roget at midnight. What a magical experience.



The sea was dead calm but with a huge rolling swell so the zodiac had the coolest motion.



Pancake ice was forming on the surface indicating that the freeze was beginning the yearly cycle again. I’ve never seen light like there was out on that water. Everything glowed.



The icicles hanging of the giant bergs looked like strings of diamonds.

 

[bPeteb]

The ship glowed as it ducked down into the troughs of the giant swells.







We saw a couple of penguins bob up and I think some others saw some seals but there was no need for wildlife in the living postcard we were cruising through the middle of.





We weren't back onboard until after midnight. Despite being truly freezing by the time we stepped back up onto the ship, I think we would have gladly stayed out for hours more

 

[Milboo]

Love the pics!

The one of the penguin on top peak of iceberg with the zodiac behind is great.

 

[RB]

Fantastic photos & thanks for the detail of the lectures/talks. I thought we saw some pretty special stuff in Alaska but I am in awe of your experiences so far

 

[Steady]

Amazing photos, thank you

 

[OZDUCK]

Great photos - and another vote for the penguin surveying the world from its lookout.

 

[bPeteb]

Monday January 23

Temp -2C. Seas 1.25-2.5 metres. Position at 09:16 72 57’ S 170 36’ E. Course 197. Speed 6.2 knots

Clocks wound forward an hour at 2am. Nothing like losing an hour’s sleep when you go to sleep well after midnight!

We opened the blinds and there was no sign of Cape Hallett, or any other land. The whole thing with expedition cruising is that the schedule has to be fluid to cope with the weather and the ice. I’m guessing that there was too much ice at the Cape. There was enough where we were, wherever that was.

Lecture by Peter McCarthy – Conduit to the Heroic Age. Peter’s grandfather sailed on the Terra Nova with Scott and his uncle sailed with Shackleton on the ill-fated voyage of the Endurance. He was one of the crew who then battled on with Shackleton, Hurley and crew to South Georgia. Fascinating lecture. Imagine having family involvement with both explorers!!

Photo Workshops – you take two images and have them reviewed by the photographers. Didn’t get to mine. Not sure if that was good or bad as even the gloves off reviews weren’t as cruel as they could have been. The residents take gazillions of photos as they sail around the world. They should be good!! At the end of the expedition a book of photographs is produced. Some residents were making it very clear it should be 'residents only'. We understand and agree and did not offer any photos for consideration.

Cape Hallett scenic cruising didn’t eventuate as there was too much pack ice in the area. Pack ice is amazing.



We loved it when we up in Greenland but this pack ice is much better because there seals and penguins on and amongst it!

The sea was dead calm, again, as we approached Coulman Island. The expedition team is constantly commenting on how lucky we are with the weather. That they haven’t seen it this clear and this calm. Lucky us!

View attachment 90614

 

[bPeteb]

Coulman Island has an emperor colony during the winter so that hope here was that there would still be some hanging around before they head out to sea to fatten up.

We were in the zodiacs in the middle of the afternoon and out into the ice.

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We were out with expedition leader Rob McCallum and Graeme Ayres (the expedition crew skipper the zodiacs when we go out) who said he was along as the crash test dummy. How right he was...

 

[bPeteb]

Pretty soon the call came over the radio that two emperors had been spotted. Just wow! Our pictures are cough but the memories are in our heads. A juvenile and an adult both at the end of the catastrophic moult. Very little signature yellow to set them off against the snow.

 

[bPeteb]

After we’d been out a while we started to see other zodiacs pulled up against flows and people climbing on to them. Rob started looking for one we could get on to and once chosen got Graeme to jump out and secure the zodiac. Graeme jumped off the bow and went straight up to his knees in the snow. Then he toppled over. He clawed himself up and in true Kiwi explorer spirit said it was worth trying.

One of the residents joined him, then a guest



then both Graeme and Rob realised this bit wasn’t a good choice as all three looked less than comfortable. We got everyone back on-board, Graeme with maybe wetter boats than he’d been expecting.

Next choice was much less in danger of breaking up but it was like a skating rink.



We all got off but I was terrified of slipping over, something I’ve been very good at doing over our years of travel. If I’d gone over on that bit of ice I would have broken me, or the camera, or gone in the water.



Luckily we all stayed on out feet and with photos taken by Rob, got back on to the zodiac.



We found a fantastic little adelie on one flow who put on the most fantastic show for us and another zodiac. She/he waddled and surfed backwards and forwards across the flow. It was fantastic.

 

[bPeteb]

Some more of the show penguin