As we travelled further south, the temperature gradually dropped lower and lower until we woke to ice on the inside of our cabin window, icicles hanging from the storm-door frames and snow drifts collected out on deck. Quite exciting! but the landscape was rather windswept and desolate. The whole scene was indeed almost inexpressible. One can only imagine what was in the minds of the wretched explorers when they arrived at and named this island 100 odd years ago - Inexpressible Island. It's a lonely and hostile place and so not all the waters are charted around here. The days we were there the wind was blowing hard reaching 80-90 Kph and the temperature was -12C. Yet it was sunny with blue skies.
We had to scratch a hole in the glass on the Bridge to see out. Thrilling!
Everyone was up on the Bridge to see this desolate island where Scott’s north party who, having missed the ship because of advancing sea ice, were marooned and had to spend 'winter' in 1912 in an ice cave they had dug in a huge snow drift.
Approaching Inexpressible Island we had a porridge sky
The prominent hill on the island (foreground) is Harrowfield Hill. In the background somewhere in that stretch of snow is where Scott’s north party dug in for the Antarctic winter, 2012.
We were fortunate to have Dr David Harrowfield, Antarctic historian and lecturer, on board with us. For many decades David has worked in the Antarctic and has also been associated with the preservation of much of the remaining artifacts from the Heroic Age of Exploration - we were to visit some of those sites as part of this expedition. He was dubbed Antarctica's first archaeologist in 1977 and has the honour of having an Antarctic landmark named after him, Harrowfield Hill, in recognition of his work as a geographer and historian over four decades. The 95m hill is close to where six members of Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition survived for 209 days in a snow cave in 1912, when their ship was unable to get through the sea ice to pick them up. It was eerie approaching this island listening to him describe how the explorers managed to survive here. It really is a desolate place. On the following video (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/X_Q-dgzQPZ0) you will hear how vicious the wind was, it was hard holding my iphone steady.
Hell's Gate
Behind the island is Priestly Glacier, with its terminal moraine probably very appropriately named ‘Hell’s Gate’, spreads out below the 2700m Prince Albert Range behind which the polar ice cap can be seen stretching inland. A wild, fearsome, unchartered and exciting place to encounter.
We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the sea getting whipped up and away creating rainbows. A beautiful overlay to the wild sea which was showing signs of beginning to freeze.
The sea has many phases as it freezes. This stippling is part of it. Quite fascinating to watch.
We visited the island twice - once on our way south and again on our return journey north 4 days later. A group of people went ashore on our second visit, but the sea was pretty rough so I decided against it. Still I wished I had joined them as this island has some of the best examples of lichens in this entire region and also some amazing rocks as well as the odd penguin. I say ‘odd’ because the landing party came across an Emperor penguin on the island and that’s most unusual. These penguins rarely go ashore living their entire life on sea ice, ice shelf or at sea.
At the end of every day we looked forward to a few warming drinks and a good meal.
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