Reaching the Pack Ice - December 19, 2008

22 Dec 2008

Reaching the Pack Ice - December 19, 2008

By Blog.Admin

True to his promise, Jonas woke us at 6.30 AM when we reached the edge of the pack ice. The morning was absolutely glorious, with bright sunshine, no wind and ice all around us. We had lots of birds following the ship and often swooping in low over the bow. It was definitely a morning to be up and out on deck, which is what most of us did.

The serious photographers had their tripods set up and it wasn’t long before we had wildlife to photograph. Penguins were in the water and on the ice floes. Birds were circling the ship and the scenery around us was fantastic.

After Barrie talked to us in the auditorium about ice, it was time to get out on deck and see the real thing. Soon Debbie and her helpers arranged for a container of gluwein (a secret recipe that is almost impossible to duplicate at home, as the environment is as important as the spices) to be served on deck. We all celebrated crossing the Antarctic Circle. To travel below 66 degrees south is quite an achievement and definitely worthy of a celebration.

With all the rain we had experienced earlier, it was so good to be out on deck and seeing some sunshine and enjoying the almost balmy conditions.

After lunch and the documentary film at 3 p.m. we had a very good talk with Sue about ‘Behind the Scenes of Planet Earth’ as she was involved with this work with the BBC. She showed fantastic footage of several episodes which were filmed with polar bears and eider ducks and gave us interesting background information on how these documentaries were made.

Tomorrow we are heading for Cape Adare, so we all went off to bed looking forward to possibly making our first Continent landing.

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