February 16 crossing into the Antarctic Circle!

 Now we were really heading into the cold! At 3:00 am six days after we set sail from Bluff, and while we were adrift on dreams of icebergs and penguins, we crossed the Antarctic Circle 66 34 S; 168 53 E.  With the exception of a small part of the Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica lies entirely within the Antarctic Circle - we were getting close! 

A gentle, quiet morning greeted us. 

We awoke that auspicious morning to a soft silent world with a light blanket of snow over the ship sparkling in the sunlight. Absolutely beautiful! We all felt a mounting fizz of excitement with every passing hour as we came ever closer to sighting land. And the day only got better and better. You have to be out there on the ocean to really appreciate just how vast and powerful the Southern Ocean is.

For an hour or so, a small pod of Humpback whales played ‘ring a rosy’ with us, as ship and whales circling the other in a delightful dance. They may have been feeding close to the surface but it was obvious that they were putting on a performance for us - diving under and swimming flank to flank with our ship, rolling over and surfacing so close to the ship that we could see every barnacle. Curiosity from both sides - sea and ship. 

After this rather thrilling dance as man and beast circled and inspecting each other, we were all buzzing. And the mood of the ship stepped up another notch to a heightened sense of excitement and expectation after a briefing on Cape Adare where we hoped to make our first Antarctic landing early the next morning.