Antarctica Report

Internet connectivity has been spotty on account of our far southern latitude. We are currently on the fourth day of our time in Antarctica.

The voyage down was uneventful. The 3-5 meter swells experienced at the first were the largest. Most of the time the swells were in the 1-3 meter range and the wind chop was moderate. Lots of blue sky, too boot.

Our first day at the continent was at Port Martin. There the katabatic winds were fierce (40-50 knots) so we were unable to launch the zodiacs for a cruise along the ice fronts.

The second day was to Cape Dennison where Mawson had his hut. Conditions were excellent with only light winds. The zodiacs shuttled everyone to shore where we were able to wander amongs the Adelie penguin rookeries. It was a picture perfect day.

On the third day we moved to Point St. Jules. In the morning we did a zodiac cruise of the area but then the zodiacs were recalled on account of a small ice berg drifting toward the Orion. The Orion hoisted its anchor and moved out of the way to let that one and several more pass by. Fortunately, this occured during lunch.

After lunch, the Orion reanchored and the zodiacs were launched for a landing. The expedition crew does a great job of preparing the landing areas so getting a shore is usually not a lot of fuss despite the icy shores.

The scenery is truly fabulous. Having seen glaciers on mountains around the world, the glaciers on Antarctica are in a class by themselves. It is difficult to grasp the concept that the ice sheet you see in front of you extends for 1400 miles to the South Pole at an average depth of nearly 5000 feet thick.

Today we hope to make a landing at the French Antarctic base at Dumont D'Urville (DDU for short). The movie "March of the Penguins" was filmed at an Emperor Penguin colony near here. With the exception of one lone Emperor all we have seen so far are thousands and thousands of Adelie Penguins.