DAY 36 Feb 17 – Ice Cruising to Nowhere, Antarctica

I was awoken this morning at about 5 o'clock by the sound of the Arctic wind. It was quite bright outside although very misty with poor visibility. The howling wind had been blowing all night. We were of course still surrounded by icebergs. Our apparent slow speed indicated that there was recognition on the bridge of these hazards.

I ventured up to the Lido deck hoping to have an early coffee and then have a look around from the Lido's aft deck but what greeted me here was furniture scattered all round this normally tranquil outside eating area.

The wind had left its mark with cushion having flown everywhere. The exit door from the restaurant was closed as it was deemed too dangerous for passengers to wander out there while gale force winds and more persisted.

I heard from another passenger that he had just seen the Ice Captain who advised him that the bad weather would be with us for another 3-4 hours.

Maria was soon up and about in the cabin and on iceberg watch duty from the windows of the balcony.

She tersely advised me that she thought we were now in some quite dangerous waters with more and more icebergs and increasingly large patches of sea ice around us. She was right. The ship had to stop and start reversing as the way ahead was closed to us without some further dangerous maneuvering.

We really were in the Antarctic and this really was what it was all about; icebergs, frozen waters and chilling winds.

It was confirmed from our Exploration Commentator on the bridge, John, that we would have to head away from here as the waters were inaccessible ahead. This meant we would miss out on seeing Hope Bay.

However below is a library picture of the area and some notes on this fascinating part of the Antarctic.

Hope Bay (Spanish: Bahía Esperanza) on Trinity Peninsula, is 3 miles long and 2 miles wide, indenting the tip of Antarctic Peninsula and opening on Antarctic Sound.

The Bay was discovered on January 15, 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Otto Nordenskiöld, who named it in commemoration of the winter spent there by J. Gunnar Andersson, S.A. Duse, Toralf Grunden and José María Sobral of his expedition after his ship (the Antarctic) was crushed by the ice and lost. They were eventually rescued by the Argentine corvette Uruguay. The ruins of a stone hut built by members of the expedition can still be seen.

The old British Base "D" was established here in 1945. It partially burned in 1948 and was closed in 1964. On December 8, 1997 the British Antarctic Survey transferred the base to Uruguay, who renamed it Teniente Ruperto Elichiribehety Uruguayan Antarctic Scientific Station.

The present Argentine Base (Esperanza) was established in 1952.

Commentator John complemented the Captain and his Ice Captain on this morning's great manoeuvring of the ship when bringing it down here into these hazardous frozen waters.

I ran across the young British female 4th officer, Ailing, a little later in the morning as we went upstairs for breakfast. I had last met and spoken to her as we transited the Panama Canal.

I enquired how she was as her face was reddened and weathered. She had in fact been on bridge watch since 4 this morning.

During the ship's recent manoeuv-ring and reversing out of the ice, she had been stationed on the bridge wings where there is no protection from the elements. Thus the slightly weathered look from standing in the wind in these freezing temperatures.

She said it was a wonderful experience for her on this her first visit to the Antarctica but found it quite stressful.

Seemingly the bridge duty crew has to keep lookout for icebergs and sea ice with the use of binoculars, night-vision equipment and a searchlight. Now that is some responsibility in these conditions at night and I can only take my hat off to young Ailing and her ship's bridge colleagues.

We're still not yet exactly sure where we will end-up this morning, although it was hoped we could make it to Admiralty Bay on Isla 25 de Mayo (King George Island).

Well this didn't work out either because of more packed ice so we changed plan again and headed for Elephant Island.

On route we have been advised to look out for the local wild life.

Already this morning we have seen several whales playing around close to the ship.

As the morning progresses we continue north looking for a clear passage avoiding the ice field and anything worse that might be around.

The Captain has now advised us that we are “more or less just cruising to nowhere”, as he put it. He is not sure what routes are open to us. We are very much in the hands of the unpredictable Antarctic weather now and there is no local forecast for this.

Our leader has again been on the air waves informing us that we are heading north east but an ice field, now visible on our starboard side, is restricting our heading. There is a suggestion that we are not sure what we are doing at the moment!

The ship has been in commun-ication with another expedition and smaller ship that is at the other side of the ice field.

It is trying to get in and we are trying to get out. We will continue, as they will, following the edge of the field hoping to find an opening. He concluded by saying we were on an Ice Cruise at the moment.

It really can't get much more exciting than this, can it?

It transpired that there was no way in or out of the said ice field so we have turned round and are retracing our route to take us out of this now potentially dangerous part of Antarctica. We continue to see the most amazing icebergs of all shapes and sizes.

Most passengers don’t mind that we are going nowhere as the sights around us in these treacherous frozen waters are just so awesome

By 5.00 pm we had at last reached open waters. This was after a 40-50 mile detour this morning to escape the pack ice that has infiltrated this sea.

The Ice Captain informed us that this ice had not been here two weeks earlier when he had traveled this same route on the Amsterdam. It has probably come up on the current from nearer the pole traveling a good distance over the last couple of years. It is unheard of for this kind of ice hazard to be present in these waters.

It has been exciting being on a cruise ship in these fascinating and unknown circumstance and is an unforgettable part of this amazing Antarctica Experience.

We have today passed the most wonderful icebergs ima-ginable. Some looked like big castles while others were the size of football fields. We of course took hundreds of photographs as we passed among them. One would have to be here in person to really get the true magnitude of this whole amazing scene.

We are now moving north with our bearing set toward the Falkland Island where we are due in a few days time.

Shortly before 8.00 pm, as we were about to leave the icebergs of the Antarctic behind us, as we head further north, we passed a most beautiful and enormous iceberg that had a small colony of penguins ‘on board’. This was really a wonderful sight to finish off what had been a unique and memorable experience for all of us including, I’m sure, the officers and crew.