This morning the sea was shrouded in a heavy mist but that didn’t dampen our spirits as we got closer to the tip of the South Shetland Islands. Everyone was scanning the sea for the first icebergs. There were more briefings to go through – biosecurity, embarking and disembarking zodiacs. We had to vacuum all our gear to remove potential threats – seeds and the like.
Once that was all sorted out, we had a terrific lecture from historian and guide Nina Gallo; she is a wonderful engaging story teller. She talked about the first explorers of the Antarctic Peninsula. As the C19 was coming to a close, there was mounting interest in Antarctica and that led in 1895 to a Congress which focused on exploring Antarctica. Of course interest was world-wide stretching to Australia. In terms of the Antarctic Peninsula however, the first explorer to visit and camp on the continent overnight was De Gurlach aboard the Belgica; this was a purely scientific expedition. Next was Charcot in the early 1900s. That expedition collected data which filled 18 volumes of scientific reports. Some years later he returned in a ship called Pourquoi Pas? The purpose of this expedition was to study penguins, glaciers and topography. Meanwhile in Greater (Eastern) Antarctica a British expedition left for Antarctica from Hobart, Tasmania with Borchgrevink. The ship, ‘Southern Cross’, reached the Ross Sea on the 31st of December 1898. It had taken 43 days to get through the pack ice. The ship reached Cape Adare on the 17th of February 1899 where work began to move stores ashore and build a hut for the ten winterers to live in for the next year; Borchgrevink called the site Camp Ridley after his mother. We attempted but failed to visit that hut in February 2020. That afternoon Lizzelle one of the naturalists on board gave us an overview of the wildlife we would likely encounter on the Peninsula, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands.
Excitement was mounting!
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