19 December
by Amanda Rodrigues AlvesWe had a quiet day yesterday just drifting on the bay. Towards midnight everything became really still and some Storm Petrels (small birds) started to come really close and actually landed on our boat. I got a really good close shot of them and went to bed happy.
Today I woke up at 7:30 and after my breakfast I went outside to take a look on what was happening. To my surprise it was a beautiful sunny morning and quite warm as well. There was even some guys (full of testosterone) with t-shirts outside. We started to move trying to find a way through the pack ice and it was just amazing! Everything was really still, the water looked like a mirror. Actually it looked like we had two skies, above us light blue with thin puffy clouds and below a dark blue sky with little pieces of ice for clouds, and so vast!
I really feel safe here for my own amazement. I was very scared to come on this journey to the ends of earth but I'm feeling quite calm and safe now. It was beautiful to watch everyone being quite and contemplating the landscape.
Before they started to break through the ice we parked in it for a while so that the helicopter could go on it's inspection flights. They went to the German base, flew around the bay, went to SANAE (the South African base) and also played around a bit, landing on icebergs and ice floats. I think they did that so we could just take lots of pictures. While we were parked, there was a seal near us and after a while it started to move and came really close to the boat and then just went quietly into the water. It was so clumsy, it didn't move well on the ice and from time to time actually ate a bit of snow and rolled over the ice, I think it was getting warm from all the effort of moving around. On the other side of the boat there was 3 penguins that started to move towards us all the way back from the German base and came really close before also going into the water.
While we were trying to find a path through the ice we could see the German base at a short distance. It looked like tiny black specks on the horizon, but it was a good feeling to think that there was people there and that we were so close, about 8 miles. On the way we went past really close to some icebergs and there was beautiful blue caves in them. I spent almost all the day out in the deck, there is so much going on that I don't want to miss a thing.
Around 4pm they gave up trying to break the ice where we were and it looked like we had to go to the old South African base (another 24 hours) and there build a ramp on the ice shelf to be able to off load. That meant another 4 days on this boat at least. But right now we are a bit further west from where we were and we've been breaking into the pack ice for about an hour. They are trying to get into the bay ice which is more solid and then they will see if it's safe to off load there. This might mean that we'll maybe be out of the boat in 2 days.
Difficult to make a sure plan here as I'm starting to notice. Nature shows it self here in a very beautiful raw way.
The feeling of the boat breaking the ice is like a four by four car going through some very bumpy road and it sounds like thunder.
Key to ice words:
Ice shelf - is the permanent ice that surrounds the Antarctic continent, is quite old and thick, sometimes it can be up to 30 meters high. In most places is very still and bases can be built on top of it, like the German Base we're close to. But in other places it can move a lot and eventually break into big pieces that become icebergs.
Bay ice - is the old frozen water immediately after the ice shelf. It does not necessarily melt during summer. It looks quite flat, like a big white desert.
Pack ice - is the recent frozen water, that can go all the way up to 58º south all the way to the ice shelf in winter and disappear completely in Summer. It's easy to break through it because is formed by small pieces of from water that come together but it can get quite thick in some places.
19 December 2006, Akta Bukta, 5km from Neumayer Base
by Thomas MulcaireNature has a way of quietly and effortlessly putting technology in its place. We spent most of the day pushed up against pack ice within sight of Neumayer base. The Agulhas unable to break through more than a few hundred metres without risking being trapped in a pincer movement by the ice. Emperor penguins were all around the ship, looking photogenic and making their way to and fro from the sea onto the ice and back again. With the DV camera we picked up four or five gangs many km away on their long belly slide odysseys over the pressure ridges in the pack ice towards our position on the edge of the ice, hoping to film the penguins launching into the water. But instinct and common sense requires an Emperor penguin to stop about a metre before the open sea and then stand up and survey the water for leopard seals before jumping in. This surveying is a discrete group exercise, with each penguin gazing apparently aimlessly into the distance. However on closer inspection it is clear that each penguin has taken responsibility for a sector of the view and the scan is panoramic. This is also no hurried glance. The poker-faced Emperors take their time, standing motionless for so long they appear nostalgic. This of course confounds the filmmaker, who sees the time code running. Its now a one-sided game of chicken. 5 minutes go by. 10 minutes go by. 15 minutes go by. The filmmakers finger is on the red button, wishing 5 and 10 and 15 minutes ago that he had switched to standby already, and knowing that with each passing minute the probability of the Emperors making their move has increased. Finally, the pressure of the time code wins out, the filmmakers finger hits the red button, the standby function flashes in the viewfinder, and the tape stops rolling. The stand-off is complete. And the Emperors, with a wry grin, step into liquid.
19 December
by Adam HydeWe woke up at 9am to find the ship parked on the pack ice. The helicopters had already gone to do a scout and we were waiting for their return. No one was really sure of what the plan was, I think I have heard at least four versions of whats going on. The stories differ from "I heard we are definitely leaving today by chopper for SANAE" to "we won't even think about getting everyone off for another 3 or 4 days". So there you go, if you ain't the boss you don't know whats happening - such is the way with many parts of ship life I have found. Limbo was better today however. We travelled quite distance looking for routes to Neumayer. Everyone was outside on the decks taking in all that was to offer. The day featured beautiful clear blue skies with fine lace like clouds and a lot of variation in ice. At one point ice cut into the horizon in huge mountainous shapes very similar to the stony red mountains seen in wild west movies. Other times the we approached large areas of pack ice where the pressure had caused ridges outlining large (approx. 6m square), tightly packed, and irregularly shaped blocks of ice. The ridges formed miniature mountain ranges about 50cm high around each block. Other times we moved through open water with small ice all around us and with the clean blue skies and water, clear, deep, blue. Here we could see the luminous blue keels of ice under each iceberg.
There is also a fair bit of wildlife around. Often on large blocks there are fresh footprints from penguins that have evaded the ice breaker, and we pass many Emperor penguins that are very talented at ignoring us. They seem so bored of us one could imagine they see ice breakers twice a day and three times on Sundays. There is a troop of Emperors off the port side. They slide forward on their stomachs in single file about 1 km from the ship. Occasionally one penguin stands up and the queue behind stalls momentarily as the standing penguin looks around and then awkwardly tilts forward until it falls over on its stomach and begins the slide forward again. There are a few Weddell seals around but mostly its us and the penguins.
Later the helicopters did some investigation of the possible routes between our ship and Neumayer. At one stage we made a lot of ground with the Agulhas cutting through thick but soft ice. As I write this the ship is trying to do just this, forcing a passage to the base. The ship reverses about 100m and then ploughs full throttle into the ice, often rising a metre or so as it cuts through. The Agulhas makes about 10-20m each time. I think the base is several kilometers away. The issue here is that as we cut forward the ice is closing behind us, leaving the possibility we might get trapped.
...I just returned from checking out the stern and it appears we are indeed stuck. The ice has closed behind us and there is nothing but kilometers of ice ahead. The Agulhas is retreating a few metres at a time and then thrusting forward, making about 2 metres every 20 minutes. According to one of the crew there is an issue with a thruster which doesn't help. It seems we will continue this battle for the night. The open water is just 500m metres behind us but blocked by large pieces of ice we broke up on our way through. Additionally the ice is too weak here to offload onto the ice...
...Its after dinner now, and just before dinner there was an interesting 45 minutes when the ship tried to back out of the trail we had cut. The ship back up as fast it could, pushing large pieces of broken ice backwards and to the side. When the ship could not move anymore it would drift forward a few feet and blow water out of thrusters at the back of the boat. Some ice would then be shifted by the currents of the thrusters and the Agulhas would then try moving backwards again. This went on for about 30 minutes before the ship was in a clear pool and could then push more easily back to where we started. There is now a slight twilight and the ship is in open water making towards our plan B dock (Akta Bukta).