HOLLY’S SPECIAL ADVENTURE

One of the things about Holly that first caught my attention was her sense of adventure. She had climbed to 18,000 feet in the mountains near Everest. When I was writing a book a few years ago on how our government compromises the health of patients suffering chronic pain, I asked Holly what was her dream. She said to go to Antarctica. So we planned this adventure and, as we did, I became infected by her vision to study a place that has been partly despoiled by humankind even though the environment is so harsh they can hardly live here except for short periods in base camps that are for research (and no doubt some to stake claims to minerals – when and as that becomes possible). We are quite well aware as well that trips such as the one we are taking may be curtailed or eliminated in the not so distant future. We have no illusion that we are not attempting anything like Ross, Amundsen, Shackleton, or what any of the others attempted or accomplished, but you get an appreciation by being here, you can only imagine.


JPF

BERGS TO THE RIGHT OF US, BERGS TO THE LEFT OF US, BERGS ALL AROUND …

This morning, we traveled Southwest down the Gerlache Strait, islands to the North, the Antarctic Peninsula to the South. We began our sail early this morning at South 64 degrees, 4.616 minutes Latitude, and West 61 degrees, 52.81 minutes Longitude. In all directions there were snowy cliffs and rock, breath-taking cloud formations, bergs on every side. In the early hours, the ocean was black. You can only imagine the early mariners in ships no larger than the small tender that took us ashore in the Falklands coming south down this strait, not knowing what to expect, having mariner’s tools, but nothing like we have today, watching this land of wonder unfold, taking measurements, risking that they might become encased in ice and not return, and yet they pressed on.


We had sun and patches of blue sky that broke through the shades of black and white.

The cliffs that breed bergs are more obvious here, and the rocks beneath appear riven from the separation of berg from glacier and cliff.

The shapes of these bergs, like the lines and incidents of a human face, tell you something of the history and character of these bergs and bergy bits.

We saw seals on the bergs, rare birds that sailed almost motionless above on wind currents in silouhette waiting for the right moment to fish.

JPF

THE WINDS OF THE ANTARCTIC

The waters of the Arctic can be as quiet as a lake and in a matter of minutes the air is full of extraordinary pressure and a gale that has you hanging on to the ship.


Our ship rides comfortably in the water because of its weight and the skill of the crew on the bridge but it’s like have a large sail above the water line with a keel that cannot run deep enough to resist the push across the surface of the water by the 50 knot winds that spring up. In fact, we changed course yesterday and bypassed ice berg alley because we were traveling sideways faster than we were going forward.

This morning I stood at the bow of the ship with my back to the wind and, with my arms outstretched, leaned backwards into the wind, and I was held fast and could feel the give and push of its force; I resisted risking too great an angle

Later in the day, when the wind pressed anew on the ship, this massive ship tilted at 6 degrees, prompting some small panic on board, water spilled from pools and tubs, dishes slid across tables and fell to the floor, and the captain issued warnings about walking on the top decks: “hold onto the rails if you do.” There was an advisory not to let the wind close the doors on your hands.

This wind came at us at 80 knots.

We were headed toward Neumayer Channel, north of the Antarctic peninsula, but the substantial force of the wind in that tight passage made any attempt foolhardy, in the words of the Captain, and so we backed out of the katabatic wind.

There’s a name for everything in Antarctica.

There are 100s of words for every variation of snow and ice – and the old hands can distinguish one from the other with ease.

Wind is no different.

As I’ve indicated in an earlier blog, we are in an in between place where the northerly waters around the world come in contact with the circumpolar waters of Antarctica.

Simarly, there are a powerful set of winds called the katabatic winds.

These are powerful gravity driven winds that have stronger inertial energy than other winds.

These winds descend from the inland snowfields toward the coast.

They scour the surface snowfields as they approach the coast and that makes them cold and they entrain a considerable volume of snow which gives them inertia, a thickness that makes them slow to warm when they do come to the cost.

When these winds drop from the plateau to the coast, the steepest descent, the winds can reach staggering velocities.

That how we found ourselves punched up and about by winds at 80 knots. When a cyclone and a katabatic shake hands, watch out. They act in concert.

What’s so amazing is how calm and comfortable it will feel standing outside, and then the waves have white tops, and wind is blowing and the ship is tilting.

The winds are fierce or muted – and there’s little in between.

JPF

LAND SEA ICE AND AIR AS ONE ....

In the last blog, we described how it appears.  We thought this photo might give you some idea of what we mean.

JPF

NOW I’LL NEVER GET HIRED BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

If you have been following this blog, you will notice that on several occasions, I have said that Shackleton left his men on Elephant Island and went to King George Island. Wrong!


King George is an island in the S. Shetlands that we will pass tomorrow or the next day but that’s not where Shackleton went to save his men.

He had to travel 800 miles from Elephant Island but it was northeast to SOUTH GEORGIA island.

JPF

The Fishing is for the birds!

2-4-10, at 2PM, heading south toward Stanley in the Falklands, at S 44 degrees 49.541 mins, and W 56 degrees, 36.335 mins. As you probably know latitude runs from zero at the equator and increases as you travel south to 90 degrees at the South pole. If you check our GPS readings, you’ll see that we have passed the mark for South 40 degrees latitude, and you can tell by reading the longitude, that we moved east from Buenos Aires, and now we’re tacking slight West as we travel south toward the Falklands. When you’ve passed S 40 degrees, our fishing experts tell us that ships pick up all manner of birds. So we sat aft in the sunshine, the worst wind blocked by the ship behind us, and looked at the wide Atlantic panorama behind us, no land in sight, not for these near-sighted eyes. The water was wine dark (like Homer used to write) and an aquamarine highway in our wake, broken by extended white swells, and crashing waves, breaking higher than the morning waves, and in the splashes of dark and light blue color were the silhouettes of birds fishing aft, air surfers tilting sideways in flight with the changing angle of the waves. We’re almost certain it’s the albatross of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. With each sweep, it appears they pick a morsel from this oceanic buffet.  JPF