After a few days of relatively nice weather, Mother Nature decided to change things around. Visibility and weather conditions started to worsen. Snow, ice flows, strong winds and the potential for dangerous encounters with small and very large icebergs, kept us on the ship. The map below will give you an idea of the difficulty to maneuver our ship or any ship in these waters. Our captain had to navigate around numerous islands, changing water depths and massive icebergs blocking channels - not an easy task. The haul of our ship was designed to withstand impact with ice, but not major impact with ice.
During Antartica's winter months (May - September) the surrounding seas begin to freeze over. The result is a huge layer of sea ice that starts to form around continental Antarctica - actually doubling its size.
What our ship was trying to do was navigate through the left over sea ice from the previous winter. The wind breaks the sea ice apart as Antarctica's summertime approaches. This takes time and as it breaks up it closes off navigational channels and potential zodiac landing areas.
What impresive views the ice provided everyone. Passengers headed out to the deck and watched an amazing site - a parade like I had never seen before. The larger icebergs were actually bigger than our ship. They could aimlessly float amongst the Antarctic channels for years before they finally break up and disappear.
This iceberg was much larger than our ship. Yes beautiful, but it could also be our demise. The fate of the ship is in the hands of those making navigational decisions. I'm sure everyone sensed how difficult navigating these treacherous waters were - none more than the captain and his crew.
Next post from this trip.
