31 Jan 2014

17 Jan Voyage: Longest Day Highlights

31 January turned into our longest day on this expedition so far, for all the right reasons. It stretched from early morning, well into the early hours of the following day. We were warmly welcomed onto the McMurdo Station with an elightening tour of several parts of the working station. The break out of ice in this region of the Ross Sea has been immense this year, with many seasoned visitors saying they cannot remember a time when a ship could be taken close enough to Zodiac passengers ashore for a 'beach' landing at Scott Base. See the photo below taken from a Zodiac.

New Zealand's Scott Base is a lot smaller and more laid back than neighbouring McMurdo.  A resupply container ship into McMurdo delayed our planned visit to Hut Point historic hut by a few hours, but this left us time to clear memory cards and catch a snippet of sleep.

Scott's hut is currently undergoing work by the Antarctic Heritage Trust, so many artefacts have been removed for conservation work. We enjoyed hearing about the history from an expeditioner historian onboard and also Al Fastier who leads the AHT work.  At approximately 11pm, an intrepid bunch of expeditioners was ferried ashore to McMurdo again for the ascent of Observation Hill.  The conquest of this large hill between McMurdo and Scott Base took between 20 and 40 minutes to ‘summit’ up a steep, loose rock pathway. The sense of space and views from the top left us in awe of the mighty Antarctic continent. We could see the pathway explorers such as Scott and Shackleton would have taken to reach the interior across a landscape of white, black and shades of grey.  Many of us saw in 1 February 2014 on the summit with a mighty ‘Happy New Month’ shouted out from the top.  A delightful Emperor Penguin arrived in our Zodiac landing region and allowed us plenty of time to watch his behaviour.

Once back onboard we set course for Cape Royds and the staff worked hard to ensure a safe landing site was chosen.  A light snowfall during the night left the landscape looking magical.  We landed in Backdoor Bay and walked over the hill to see Shackleton’s Cape Royds Hut and the nearby Adelie Penguin colony tucked into the hillside.  Again an emotional and overwhelming experience awaited those who stepped inside.  The Leopard Seals near our landing and Adelie Penguins gave us plenty of wildlife opportunities also. Two reasonably active Leopard Seals in particular hauled out on the iceflow gave us plenty of entertainment.

It was then time to continue our path northwards to our next landing at the Cape Bird Adelie Penguin colony on the north west tip of Ross Island. This area hosts a staggering 60,000 breeding pairs and we spent time observing the fledgling chicks and crèche formations.  After a warming dinner we set out for the Ross Ice Shelf and were awoken at 2am to view the mighty barrier along with several whales and penguins along the edge.  We spent about 2 hours exploring the shelf before we turned back towards Franklin Island.

With so much packed into one day, it is hard to believe we still have several days of exploration in this Ross Sea region.  Always at the ready, some expeditioners are even discussing the possibility of sleeping in their outdoor expedition gear to remain ready for the next adventure!