January 26 Australia Day at sea

Early morning silhouettes

Today we spent navigating further west along Antarctica’s coastline but we weren’t idle. Throughout the day we were treated to some more very interesting lectures. The first was about Emperor penguins; the lecturer was one of the expedition’s excellent naturalists, Remi Bigonneau. I couldn’t possibly repeat or even attempt to summarise his lecture, but I’d like to share a couple of things that I learned/remember. 

Penguins have been around for at least 60 million years originally living in Zealandia. Zealandia, often referred to as the 8th continent, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that subsided after breaking away from Gondwana about 80 million years ago; it is almost the size of Australia.  Surprisingly it seems that penguins, Aptenodytes, are fairly recent species in Antarctica. In the image below the coloured circles indicate Emperor penguin colonies discovered either by land, air or satellite.

Locations of Emperor penguin colonies

Remnant chunk of ancient Zealandia (outlined) with New Zealand
in the middle on a fault line!

From wildlife to exploration – the South Pole Conquest. During mainly the 19th and 20th centuries, there were a number of expeditions to Antarctica driven by the desire to find that mysterious southern land, to survive the distance and the extreme conditions, and to lay claim to it.  

For centuries the landmass thought to exist in the southern hemisphere was named 'terra australis incognita', the 'unknown southern land'. In 1820 Fabian von Bellingshausen a Russian naval officer who led the Russian naval expedition 1819-1921 in search of Terra Australis, crossed the Antarctic Circle becoming the first to do so since Cook in 1773 (something which I only recently learnt about - amongst a whole set of encyclopedia worth of new things!). 

In the 1840s, James Clarke Ross discovered a vast sea - the sea is named for him and is the most southern coastline on earth. He discovered a number of other places which also bear his name.

Adrien de Gerlache led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–99 and it was the first expedition to overwinter within the Antarctic Circle after the ship was icebound in the Bellingshausen Sea, named for the Russian explorer.

In January 1895, Norwegian explorers Henrik Bull and Carsten Borchgrevink landed at Cape Adare as the first documented landing on the Antarctic continent. Borchgrevink returned to the cape leading his own expedition in 1898-1900 and erected two huts; this Southern Cross expedition became the first to overwinter on the Antarctic mainland, and the first to visit the Ross Ice Shelf since the expedition of Sir James Clark Ross nearly sixty years earlier. Borchgrevink's huts were the first human structures built in Antarctica. One hut remains and we were to visit it on our way back north. 

Robert Falcon Scott led the Discovery Expedition in 1901-04 and the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910–1913 during which he reached the South Pole but was 'pipped at the post' by 5 weeks after Roald Amundsen raised the flag of Norway at the South Pole. As a matter of interest Amundsen led the first expedition to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage in the ship Gjoa.

Next came Ernest Shackleton who led the Nimrod expedition of 1907-09. It failed to reach the Geographic South Pole but they discovered the Magnetic South Pole.

From the lecture theatre to the table! The chef put on a special lunch for us. The tables, and our plates, were groaning with seafood of all descriptions. We topped that off with delicious Crepe Suzette. Not surprisingly we over indulged!

A couple of images of the clever artwork 'Oscillations' which are constantly changing as you watch.

We were heading for an iceshelf to hopefully get off the ship and walk on the ice. As we navigated towards the ice shelf we passed many mammoth icebergs - quite lovely!

Penguins on the ice

 Mt Siple in the distance where we were heading.