Presentations Due to High Winds - December 26, 2008
Presentations Due to High Winds - December 26, 2008
By Blog.Admin
During the night we had reached our position in the ice and the ship was about 26 miles from McMurdo. Mt Erebus was directly ahead of the ship, looking fantastic with no clouds over the summit and the ice glistening in the sunlight. However, outside was a gale force wind, gusting up to 35 knots, which definitely put paid to any helicopter flying. The plan was that we would wait out the day and see what happens with the weather, as McMurdo had given permission for us to go and visit them tomorrow instead of today.
Therefore at 9 a.m. Bob jumped in with an excellent talk on Herbert Ponting – ‘Camera Artist’. This was later followed by Nigel talking on ‘Life at a Base’. Nigel has worked at all three British Bases, Rothera, Signy and Halley and has also worked on Macquarie Island. He also talked about diving in Antarctica.
After lunch many of us went up to the Bridge to just look at the amazing scenery around the ship. The wind had totally cleared the air and Mt Erebus looked as though it was touching distance. In fact we had mountains around us on three sides. We had Weddell seals who were hauled out behind the ship and a few visiting Adelies coming over to see what was going on. Even though the wind seemed to be easing up somewhat by mid afternoon, a rather large tidal crack had opened up in front of the ship, so any thoughts of walking on the ice would not be an option.
At 5 o’clock, Adrian gave another talk about Scott’s party, the scientific work they did and the memories his grandfather and uncles passed on to him. He showed some more fascinating photographs from those early years and gave us anecdotes and stories we had not heard before.
After dinner the wind had dropped even more, making us all very optimistic that we would be able to fly tomorrow.