Feb 19th Steve's 60th Birthday !!!

Feb 19th 2017  Steve's 60th Antarctic Birthday Dream

Steve’s 60^th Birthday dawned clear & bright and he opened his eyes to a birthday banner & balloons along with a cartoon card of him in Antarctica. 
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He was about to have his birthday wish of standing on the ice in Antarctica on his 60th although he would prefer 40.

Today, we set sail to Dorian Bay. Going back down the Lemaire Channel with a higher cloud base, we were now able to see the stunning beauty of this navigation passage only discovered in the last 100 years.  

The air is thin here so sun block has to be worn despite the thick cloud and sometimes snow. Steve learnt this early as he sported a red nose before even getting here.

At Lemaire Bay, we were first on the Zodiacs for driving round the icebergs, seeing the penguins, sea lions and of course the whales.  

Strange and mesmerising ice sculptures are everwhere.
The Turquoise once are particularly stunning.

The Crab eater seal and a fur seal share a park bench for a snooze.  Temperature is minus 4.

There is a team of scientists on board studying the travel movements of hump back whales and they had been out with us on the Zodiacs and stuck a radio transmitter on a hump back whale. Fortunately this one hadn’t travelled very far so we were able to see it.

Back to the ship after getting close-up and personal to some stunningly beautiful icebergs of many colours and textures, we were back on the boat to re-sterilise, feed and drink before we set out again 2 hours later.

The last stop of the day was to Danco Island, home to many thousands of Gentoo penguins all of which seemed to want to have their picture taken.

In the Antarctic, man has not been a threat and so most animals and mammals do not fear us.  We had never been to a penguin colony before but the smell was a memorable as the sight.

After a 3 mile hike across the snow and Ice, another terabyte of pictures, we ended up at another deserted dwelling, a “refugio”, a safe place to stay built by the Argentines in the 50s for use if the weather turned.  

This place was once again, breathtakingly beautiful but extremely cold and tonight, almost half the entire ship would return to “sleep on the ice” in a bivvy bag, sleeping bag and thermal mat only (no tent) for a night in the open.  No way on gods earth were we going to do that on Steve’s 60^th birthday ! We opted instead for the relative calm of the bar with some of our new found acquaintances.

Janette had sorted Steve’s birthday out with the crew, so dinner started with champagne for our little group of 6 , Mick and "Ang" from Australia and Val and Nick from Nottingham, and the ship had made him a cake which was presented by a little Asian crew member in a Penguin suit.  

The cake was improved immeasurably by the addition of the icing penguins which Janette had brought from the birthday cake Danielle, Steve’s daughter, had made for his birthday cake before we left.

Val & Nick headed off to sleep on the shore (mad …completely mad) and we sent them flashlight messages from the ship moored offshore 2 miles.

As the level of activity and effort is very high, everybody is completely knackered by 9.30pm although tonight, we manged 10.00 remarkably. 

Thanks to all for cards & presents. The photography gear has been getting maximum use and we look forward to inviting you round when we get back to view our 10,000 slide show (only joking...honest)

All in all a pretty unforgettable 60th Birthday !!

OK...i'm off

Hope the ship doesn't go without us !

18th Feb - Antarctic Ahoy !!

18th Feb - Antarctic Ahoy !!

We woke up at 5.30am and for the first time on this trip, the ship was not listing plus or minus 30 degrees so washing and getting dressed seemed very civilised.  It’s cold now, about minus 4 degrees and a low cloud base hangs over the continent. We very excited to see icebergs as far as we could see and we are not talking lettuce here !

On deck, the most breath-taking sights that everybody on this boat had ever seen, the famous Lemaire channel with its low cloud base hanging tantalisingly over the 2000m tall peaks.  Interestingly, this was the first time a ship has managed to go down this channel this year as it has been frozen to a depth of 3m, so the crew were as excited as us to be able to do this.

Tense moments on the bridge as the Russian captain and crew navigated the channel watching out for some pretty large icebergs but the scenery was stunning.

The light was so unusual, it looked like it was from an alien planet – a strange mix of grey and turquoise water and ice mixed with the green and orange algae, the icebergs had formed into stunning ice sculptures and on many of the floating ice sculptures, seals, penguins and sea lions carried on with their day as we all stood in total amazement.  Then on top of that, total silence with the occasional ice explosion where the glacial ice clinging to the mountains, fissured and fell off into the sea.  For all of us, stunned silence as nobody could believe what they were seeing….everybody was pretty speechless.

After breakfast, we were then to kit up for the cold.  This does involve about 3 -5 layers topped off with the external gear they supply, waterproof & warm dungarees, waterproof jacket and giant green gumboots. It took us about half an hour to get everything on and after we had got all sorted, we couldn’t move, breath or regulate our temperatures so we needed to get outside quick as we were boiling up.  

After the sterilisation process and the difficult process of getting your boots on when you are trussed up like a turkey, we then wobble down the gangplanks to get on the Zodiacs and off to our first experience on dry land at Peterman Island, which is the furthest south we are going to go.

From a distance, the place looks cold and forbidding but teeming with penguins and unbelievably,

a small French sailing boat had sailed down the Drakes Passage but was now occupying the inflatable landing bay and refused to move so we had to get off the Zodiacs on the rocks which did not impress Janette one bit.  Our first Antarctic paddle !! Steve did his thing about the French again.

We spent about 2 hours in here paying particular attention to the routes marked out by the guides which seemed to be the ones with the most penguin poo and ice that breaks as you walk on it….still, we were waterproof to a depth of about 45cm….Steve had found a 46cm drop getting on the boat and learnt what “Ingress” meant.

Back on board our Zodiac RIBs and then we were given a real treat.  A tour around a real active research station. 

The Verdansky station, formally owned by the British, presumably from the time we were Great Britain, was now an active Ukranian research station. For many years, we have always wondered about the origin of the Money Supermarket Meerkat. Now, at last, we had met him, he is actually a scientist studying in Antarctica called Boris and talks exactly like Sergey.  When we asked him what he was working on, he didn’t seem sure but we noticed that here in the middle of Antarctica, where no boats or planes can land, they had a great bar and sold Vodka Shots and had a pool table so we assumed that this was accounting for most of the research.

Research Station although we believe that these are more about

occupation than research.

There did not appear to be much by research equipment and most of the activity seemed to be showing tourists around.

It might be a research station but it had a great bar selling vodka.

This is the only place to post postcards, so we sat in the research station & wrote the postcard for Mum. Probably the most remote post office in the world !!

Back on ship, a quick sterilisation with industrial strength gunk cleaning fluid, quick lunch and back into the kit up room and back for round two…

When they said we were going to “Wordie Hut”, we had not quite realised the significance of this.  It was a perfectly protected (by temperature) research station originally run by the British still with the original office, living accommodation and desks but the significance of all of this is that it was here that the hole in the Ozone layer was discovered– god, see how nerdy we have become !!

After taking in the significance, we re-boarded our RIB, re-sterilised, de-kitted, dined, drank and crashed out.  With the boat now anchored for the night….sleep was for the first time undisturbed.