Weddell Sea and Admiralty Sound
Early morning, with three inches of snow on the deck and heavy snow still falling to obscure the seas around us. No clues to our whereabouts are yet evident. The sea surface is flat, held still by the new fallen snow that acts as oil to damp the waves. Soon the fresh water slush begins to gather up into pancakes, which if the temperature drops, will form the nuclei of new ice floes . But no, it is summer and these will melt, along with the first-year sea ice floes that we are beginning to see as we wend our way further south, towards Snow Hill island in the farthest reaches of the Weddell Sea. Multi-year sea ice floes now begin to appear, a sign that we are progressing south towards an area which sometimes retains its sea ice throughout the summer.
This is the domain of the Emperor penguin and we search all the ice pans for the imperial one . As the floes become more abundant we see an increasing number of Adélie penguins, but the Emperor remains out of view in his vast white court. Our attention peaks as one, then two, are sighted swimming in the distance . We expect them to be in the area since there is a colony of over 4,000 pairs located close to Snow Hill island. At this time of the year the Emperors are dispersed from their colony in which they have spent their long parental vigil during the howlingly cold Antarctic winter. They are now off on their own, feeding and enjoying the solitude of their great white world. We return north looking for hospitable ice in Admiralty Sound . Captain Skog recognizes a fine stable floe into which he skillfully carves a berth for the National Geographic Endeavour. We emerge from the ship’s protective womb onto the great ice platform and glimpse briefly what it must be to live in the world’s harshest environment . With some reluctance we return to the world of men to continue our Antarctic adventure.
Early morning, with three inches of snow on the deck and heavy snow still falling to obscure the seas around us. No clues to our whereabouts are yet evident. The sea surface is flat, held still by the new fallen snow that acts as oil to damp the waves. Soon the fresh water slush begins to gather up into pancakes, which if the temperature drops, will form the nuclei of new ice floes . But no, it is summer and these will melt, along with the first-year sea ice floes that we are beginning to see as we wend our way further south, towards Snow Hill island in the farthest reaches of the Weddell Sea. Multi-year sea ice floes now begin to appear, a sign that we are progressing south towards an area which sometimes retains its sea ice throughout the summer.
This is the domain of the Emperor penguin and we search all the ice pans for the imperial one . As the floes become more abundant we see an increasing number of Adélie penguins, but the Emperor remains out of view in his vast white court. Our attention peaks as one, then two, are sighted swimming in the distance . We expect them to be in the area since there is a colony of over 4,000 pairs located close to Snow Hill island. At this time of the year the Emperors are dispersed from their colony in which they have spent their long parental vigil during the howlingly cold Antarctic winter. They are now off on their own, feeding and enjoying the solitude of their great white world. We return north looking for hospitable ice in Admiralty Sound . Captain Skog recognizes a fine stable floe into which he skillfully carves a berth for the National Geographic Endeavour. We emerge from the ship’s protective womb onto the great ice platform and glimpse briefly what it must be to live in the world’s harshest environment . With some reluctance we return to the world of men to continue our Antarctic adventure.
