A wake up call at 4:00am the next day brought us bleary eyed up to the Bridge to see land after 5 days of an empty horizon tossed on an enormous and stormy sea - well, almost stormy. We were all rather sleep deprived and exhausted but we had arrived at the bottom of the world, Antarctica. Callooh callay!!! We were approaching Cape Adare, the western headland of the Ross Sea. And there it stood, a stark dark shoulder of land looming large against a spectacular backdrop formed by the Transantarctic Mountain range (which divides Antarctica into East and West). One could imagine how this sight must have struck wonder and awe into those early explorers! The early morning sky was painted in delicate pastels to the east - it was glorious!
The scene was absolutely breathtaking surrounded as we were by gigantic, monolithic icebergs, humongous glistening frozen chunks the size of city blocks calved off the Ross Ice shelf and mega glaciers. The sun was very low in the sky but it was a dawn! and it cast a soft apricot glow on sky-rise icebergs and turned the sea and clouds to dark slatey blue. It was so overwhelming it brought tears to our eyes.
Morning dawned glorious and gentle as we slid into Robertson’s Bay
Biiigg chunks of ice! The Captain showed me an image of the ocean floor around here and these city-block icebergs are completely grounded.
The pink smudges on the iceberg are not early morning rosy glow, but rosy penguin poo. The particular species of krill they eat is pink-red hence the colour; and yes these sweet little Adele penguins climb high on these icebergs as well as on land.
With bergy bits, chunks of ice, banging against the sides of our ship, we slid slowly into Robertson’s Bay hoping to land on the wide beach at the entrance to the bay. Here cute Adelie penguins fanned out in chattering, muttering clusters with a few giant Elephant seals plopped in between. Some of the penguins swam out from shore, porpoising towards the ship in a delightful happy greeting - it was quite beautiful. The wildlife are fearless and so welcoming; it was very humbling.
Amongst the bickering happy mass of penguins (and penguin poo!), stood Borchgrevink’s Hut, an overwintering shelter for his, the first, expedition to the Antarctic continent in 1899. Astonishingly it is still there well over 100 years later. Whilst the history of Antarctic exploration during the early 1900s, the Heroic Age of Exploration, is quite riveting, Lindsay and I were primarily there for the wild life and to experience a tiny bit of this mysterious continent. This is of course what brought those heroic men south all those decades ago - that and the mad dash to be first to reach the South Pole.
Remnant sea ice packed in along the shore that morning prevented us landing any zodiacs. So eventually after we had taken our fill of the splendour cupped in the amphitheater of mountains and the smorgasbord of exotic wildlife, we headed around the Cape and on south into the Ross Sea. We were fairly drained by the end of the day. A culmination of the excitement of reaching Antarctica, dashing back and forth between decks, bow to stern and aloft to the Bridge many times throughout the day - not to mention lack of sleep after many very rough days at sea! It was a wonder-filled day and put us in the right frame of mind for what was yet to come.
Scale is difficult to describe in this vast land and sea but this mountain range, the Transantarctic Mountains rises to over 4.5 Km high, and stretch for more than 3000 km across the continent. Staggering!
It was freezing cold but we were deliriously happy/
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