Post the Twenty-Third

What better place for boating activities could there be than Antarctica?



For the most part the small boats on station (RHIBs, or rigid-hull inflatable boats - usually Zodiacs) are used by the science programs when studying near shore marine ecology.

You know:  official, useful stuff.

I will often, from the mess windows,  see the boffins beetling around the islands off Davis checking Antarctic sea urchin populations, or rock cod populations, or mermaid populations or whatever.

Exciting for boffins, no doubt, but we deboffinated types don't get to play.

However once the boating season is underway, the boats (and the coxswains to drive them) are made available by the Station Leader to take groups out in the evenings on 'berg cruises'.   Bill has made it a stated aim to give everyone an opportunity to see the icebergs up close - onya, Bill!  Exciting for everyone else!

So my turn came around, and here I am after dinner, suited up in the Mustang survival suit and sunhat, and coated in sunscreen, ready to see me some icebergage!

Nautical

And off we go - three boats full of eager Expeditionus Davisii heading off to see (and photograph the heck out of) whatever sights there are to see.

The determined looking chap is the coxswain of our boat, Richard Youd.

Flotilla

The first port of call was the Magnetic Island Adelie penguin colony.  There are no colonies on the mainland near to Davis, but there are numerous colonies on the islands in the vicinity.  So we paid a visit to the nearest.

As we slowly approached the colony one of the boats received a bit of a bonus.  Evidently one the Adelies couldn't tell the difference between a boat and an ice floe.  (Perhaps red ice floes full of humans are common in some areas).  So it leapt out of the water onto the prow of the boat, and stood there for about 20 seconds, either in a daze at what was going on, or out of curiosity.

I say, do any of you chaps have any fish going spare, wot?

 Either way it presented a brilliant photographic opportunity to the people in that boat.  Of course, it was never going to happen to a boat in which I was sitting with a camera, was it?  Oh no! Of bloody course not.

Having established that there was no percentage in remaining on board the Zodiac, the Adelie disembarked in an orderly fashion, leaving us all to move closer to the colony.


Which we did.

Penguins

More penguins. But a wee bit closer.

Of equal interest to me were the visitors.  Sometimes they even put their cameras down!

Click.  Click.  Click.  Clickety clickety. Click. Clickety.

...clickety.  Click.  Click.  And so on and so on and so forth.

 I oughtn't indulge in too much mockage.  After all, I too did my fair share of clickety click.  I also took some embarrassingly poor video footage.  After discarding the absolute dreck, I am reasonably happy to share this not-as-dreadful-as-the-bulk-of-it clip with you.

The fleet then moved out further to the iceberg zone.

Beyond the islands is an area of grounded icebergs brought thither by tide and wind.  Surrounding the Big Bergs is Sesame Street a collection of smaller bergs and bergy bits, as well as some ice floes, largely kept in place by the protection that the larger bergs provide from the winds.  So what we have here is a strip about a kilometre wide of icy bodies  off the coast, and this is the destination of the berg cruise.

This is the first sizeable lump of ice we came across.

Icebergs are not static.  In addition to being moved around by wind and current, they are always eroding.  Melting.  And, as their centre of gravity changes they rotate around it, sometimes flipping right over.

 As is shown beautifully by this one, with its angled shelf.  That shelf would once have been parallel to the surface of the water, and much closer to it.


 There were still penguins to see.  Here a few of them are conducting their own berg cruise, albeit much more sedately on a floe.

In fact there were penguins around us all the while we were out.  Sometimes standing on floes or smaller bergs, but mostly porpoising through the water in small groups.  None, however, decided it would be a good idea to pop up onto our boat to have a portrait done.  Ah well.


I found this one of interest not only because of the interesting shape that it had weathered into, but also because of the beautiful colours it was producing in the evening sunlight.

Then it was time to move closer to one of the larger ones.

I grabbed this photo of another boat (containing Superslushy Hannah among others) because of the rapt attention they were showing to the sights of the big berg.  I reckon that my own boat would have looked rather similar.

Such colours!

Bit of a chance shot here.  Richard looking terribly heroic (except for that silly grin) as we go past the towering end of a berg.

I rather like this one - given the size and shape of this bergy bit it gives an idea of just how much of each one is below the waterline.

Off to look at another biggie.

With more unreal colouring.

You can clearly see the drip line around the edge where run-off occurs, along with the icicles that are formed as the running water refreezes.  Awesome!

And here I present to you, apropos of nothing, another little clip.  This one showing one of the boats moving in for a closer look.

I took a great many photos, it must be said, but am only inflicting upon you those that I think are most representative.  This one is not really representative of anything, but I thought it looked cool with the ice slope heading down to the water, and the zodiac there for scale.

Lastly, this one.  Even though the sun was by now behind cloud, and therefore the colours from the bergs quite muted, I just loved the blues coming from this one.  It seemed to glow!

Just beautiful.  If only we had got to it while the sun was shining.  He says, wistfully.

And here it is again, only this time in living, glorious Jeff-O-Vision!

In all we spent around 2 and a half hours out there, and it was spellbinding.  That said, by the time we turned our noses for home (along with all the rest of our anatomies) I was well and truly ready to return.  Even though I had my thermal gear on and the Mustang survival suit, I was cold.  Cold, cold, cold.  Not to mention a stiff northerly was making its presence felt.

Nothing a nice, hot (30 second) shower didn't fix, though!

A fantastic evening, and I hope that my paltry visual offering is able to give you just a hint of spectacular sights that transfixed us.

Until next time, then!


Reminder - although I doubt you'll need it - click on the pictures to get the bigger versions.