January 2013

Update from Anton Bowring… “Today has been very successful. By this morning virtually all the sea ice had drifted out of the bay. There was just one floe with an inquisitive group of penguins observing us in the morning sunshine. We manoeuvred the ship slowly to the head of the bay and pushed the bows into the low ice shelf. By driving the ship gently ahead with the autopilot set, the ship has…

More pics available on Flickr…

We have been waiting all day for the ice to drift slowly out of the bay. It has been clearing well but some still remains in the head of the bay. This evening the Belgians arrived and we established contact on the VHF radio. They are already clearing a site with their vehicles so that we have a level base for depositing cargo as it is unloaded. The plan is to try and bring the ship alongside t…

Check out our Flickr account for the latest images from the expedition. We have uploaded lots of stunning photographs taken from the ship off Crown Bay this morning. Plenty of ice, a few moody shots of the team and even a bit of wildlife to enjoy. Check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecoldestjourney/ Or follow the link to Flickr by clicking any of the thumbnails on the bottom right…

The following update was sent to Operations HQ late last night by Anton Bowring, but due to poor comms on the ship only arrived this morning: “We arrived in Crown Bay at about 3pm. We ended up spending most of the afternoon and early evening trying to find out where we can berth. There is a lot of broken bay-ice which is in-penetrable for this ship. So we have decided to lie off until tomorrow.

Photo by Adrian McCallum…

Crown Bay bearing 203 degrees at 7 nautical miles. Picture taken by Anton Bowring at 11.15am GMT.

By Anton Bowring My colleagues and I have given much attention recently to the splendours of the Southern Ocean and, increasingly, to the subject of Antarctica. It is hardly surprising. It isn’t every day that one visits Antarctica (although, shortly, our visit is about to be on an all too daily basis and, for some, it will be on an annual basis). This is all well and good but there are other…

Today is our 11th day at sea on the Agulhas. We are right on scheduled to complete a 13-day trip to Crown Bay from Cape Town. Considering the slight mechanical glitch our first day, I am told this is really good time. When I stood down from my bunk this morning and looked outside, hoping to see even more ice than the day before, I was disheartened by the complete lack of icy obstacles. Instead,…