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Reaching the Antarctic

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06 March 2019

 

Melchior Islands

Antarctica

 

64°19'S
62°58'W

Sea level

 

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IT IS NOW 3:00 PM and as you can now see we've just spotted land. This is part of the South Shetland Islands (actually the Melchior Islands which are a little further south and just off the Antarctic Peninsula) which have suddenly come out from behind the mist. We've reached a little bay with some tiny islands in it, and we're hopefully going to get off the ship and exploring them a bit later on this afternoon or this evening.

It's really exciting now that we've crossed the Drake Passage and the sea is a lot calmer here and there is a lot of ice around. We would have been able to see the land a lot earlier if it wasn't for the fog, but we're here now and there's even quite a few ice bergs here. Very exciting.

There are some very jagged headlands and some huge glaciers here. They look like white sand dunes. This is the peak of the summer melt, so this is as much land as we're ever going to see. In winter, the sea would actually be frozen for hundreds of kilometres. OK let's go to the other side and have a look.

This side is even more dramatic. We're entering a bay and heading towards some small islands in the middle of the bay. From there we're going to be setting off the zodiacs in a few hours time. This is pretty amazing.

I'm just going to head towards the back of the boat. As you can see they are already starting to get the zodiacs ready for our first look around the place. We'll be heading out sometime this evening, so I'll see you then. Hopefully we will be on the zodiacs.

We're out on the zodiacs now and that is Melchior Base. It is Argentine owned. It is very spectacular out here. There is the ship looking very small.

Well I've just come back from my first zodiac ride out on the bay here. It was absolutely amazing going out past all the icebergs here and seeing a few seals and penguins looking at all the spectacular bays.

One thing I've sort of noticed here is these glaciers have perhaps a couple of thousand years of ice sitting on top of what I think is granite, granite islands. To me they almost remind me of big huge sandunes. I guess it's the same principle (how sand dunes and ice hills form). This is the maximum melt of the year, so this is as much as the ice will ever melt before the winter ice sets in. In winter the sea will freeze with ice several metres deep. It is a really beautiful place here.

We got here just in time after a blizzard came through to clear. It looks like another one is coming through now. So we timed our landing really well. At the moment they are putting all the zodiacs back on board and I think we're going to be moving further down the coast tonight.

Apparently very few expeditions even stop here, but we were really fortunate because remember I said we had to leave Ushuaia to escape a really big storm coming through and we made really good progress over the Drake Passage to get here. Normally we'd still be out in the Drake Passage at this time of day and not getting here until the late evening. We have been very fortunate to have gotten out on what is only the second full day of the trip.

It has been a very good day in being able to see the ice. Now remember these are still the South Shetland Islands, but they are still geologically part of the Antarctic continent. Because though glaciers have been through here over hundreds of thousands of years this area has become completely separated out from the rest of the Antarctic Peninsula.

So as of now I still haven't seen the Antarctic Peninsula but that will definitely happen over the next day or two. Now my understanding is because we have a very good window of weather coming up, we're going to make a beeline straight for the Antarctic Circle. I'm really excited about that and it's amazing to finally be here.

 
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