We revisited the desolate Inexpressible island on our return journey back north. The weather was a little kinder than 4 days earlier so a group of people went ashore. The sea was still a bit too rough for me so I, and many others, decided against it but 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 land and that’s most unusual. These penguins rarely go ashore living their entire life on sea ice, ice shelf or at sea.
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| It was getting colder by the day! |
It was an icy cold -5C morning as we slowly sailed out of the Ross Sea towards Cape Adare and Robertson Bay for another attempt at landing on the beach near Borchgrevink’s hut. As we retraced our steps northward, we encountered much more ice and snow than we had seen just 7 days earlier - winter was fast closing in.
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| Possession Island - a quite magnificent and stark scene |
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| Last year's sea ice starting to clump |
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| We sailed past massive iceberg adrift in a fast freezing sea |
When we reached Robertson’s Bay, we found that it was too rough along the shore to land so we sailed further on to the head of the bay. Quite spectacular with an island, Duke of York island, almost free of snow and ice, backed up against a couple of converging glaciers.
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| Cape Adare looked so different to when we arrived a mere 7 days earlier. |
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| Duke of York Island, the dark mass on the right. |
We anchored in the Bay overnight so we could have another go at going ashore to inspect the hut in the morning.
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