Cape Royds - December 23, 2008
Cape Royds - December 23, 2008
By Blog.Admin
During the night the ship worked very hard trying to break through serious ice in McMurdo Sound. Much of this ice was multi year ice which is unusual for this area, but Kapitan Khlebnikov was working hard with all six engines trying to get into a good position. Finally around 8 AM the engines were shut down and the ship settled into the ice as a final position. We were a little over 30 miles from Cape Royds, but that was okay for the helicopters and there was not too much wind.
After breakfast helicopter flights began to take people out to Cape Royds. It was a rotation system, with one group going out and another group returning. Everyone would have about an hour ashore.
It was fantastic to see Shackleton’s Hut and New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust have done an amazing job of restoring the hut to its original look. To walk in and see the building it seems as if the men have only just left, maybe to go on a sledging trip and it feels like they will come back any time. Bob did a fabulous job of pointing out the items in the hut and giving us the background of what all the artefacts were. It was a totally surreal experience. Then we had the chance to walk to the lookout and get the fantastic view of the Adelie penguin rookery and the backdrop of Mt. Erebus.
This rookery has been monitored for many years by National Science Foundation, and even today some of the birds are still required to walk over a scale on their return to the rookery so analysis can be done on how much they have eaten. However the rookery is not doing well and has been seriously diminishing in the past few years. It is the most southerly Adelie rookery in Antarctica.