20 Feb 2018

Incredible Weather South to Coulman Island

With the best intentions to send regular blog, I have discovered it is now day 10 of this expedition and NO Blog … sorry to our regular readers. As I write this we are heading south past Coulman Island in the Ross Sea.  Weatherwise this has been the most incredible trip I can remember in the many years I have been coming here. The weather and sea conditions have been so good we have been kept busy .. that is my excuse for not writing blogs.  After leaving Bluff we had near perfect conditions at the Snares Islands, it was a similar situation at Enderby Island.  Our weather map showed strong North Easterly developing at Macquarie Islands for the days we were scheduled to be there so with the Station Leaders permission we arrived a day earlier and had an outstanding day at Sandy Bay and Buckles Bay.  The next day we enjoyed a zodiac cruise at Lusitania Bay with thousands of King Penguins on the land and in the water. The run south has been magical, we managed to keep ahead of the weather until yesterday as we approached Cape Adare where we experienced 35 knots of SE wind/sea  (right on the nose). With those conditions we skipped Cape Adare and are headed for the Ross Ice Shelf.  Ice Maps suggest that winter is coming early this year with extensive areas of refreeze already showing. I promise I will keep you posted with what we do over the next few days.