16 Feb 2016

2 Feb Voyage: Shokalskiy Furthest Ever South

Today we reached 78°43.971’S in the Bay of Whales, in the Eastern Ross Sea. This is the furthest south any vessel has ever sailed and demonstrates just how much the Ross Ice Shelf at this particular location has receded since it was first documented by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott in 1901. His calculations put the ice edge in the Bay of Whales at 78° 36’ S. In 1911 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen recorded the ice edge as being at 78° 37’ S when he built his base ‘Framheim’ on the ice shelf at 78° 38’S from which he made the first journey to the South Pole. Recent records from the few vessels that have made the journey to this remote part of the Antarctic also highlight the retreat of the ice shelf. In January 2001 the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov recorded the ice edge at 78° 41’S and in February 2015 the Arctic P claimed a new furthest south record of 78° 43.0336’S. To have exceeded that today is nothing short of remarkable.

It will be interesting to see if the ice edge has receded even further when we next return in February 2017.

We were unable to land at the Bay of Whales, but many photos of this historic place were captured before the fog rolled in. Marcus Thomassen from Norway's Fram Museum gave a presentation about the 'Fram Hiem' huts built by Amundsen and his crew and this was followed by a screening of the documentary 'The Last Ocean'. This highlights the journey of film-makers Peter Young, David Ainley and John Weller as they spent seven years making the case to halt commercial fishing and create a marine protected area in the Ross Sea, which is the most in-tact eco marine system left on earth.