Grandidier Channel and Crystal Sound
Bang! The jolting and lurching of the ship in the middle of the night and early morning hours woke a few people up as the ship began to encounter thicker and thicker ice on our progress south. A few curious souls ventured out of their beds as early as 4a.m. to watch the sunrise and to see for themselves the icy landscape and scenery around us. It was a beautiful morning. Tim woke everyone at 6a.m. to encourage them to come out on deck and to see the magnificent sunny and icy landscape surrounding us. Ice was everywhere—thick sea ice floes lay like huge pancakes some over three feet thick one next to the other with barely an open crack of water in between. Oddly shaped icebergs and blue glacier ice pieces were wedged at strange angles and sparkled in the sunshine. The rising sun illuminated the sharp mountains of the mainland on our port side, but everywhere we looked the world was a land of white ice. Our progress through the ice was slow and careful as our excellent captain and navigation officers weaved and picked their way through the more open sections. Nevertheless there were some rattles and shakes as we bumped into the floes.
Seals lay on ice floes and leopard seals, Weddell seals, and especially numerous crabeater seals were spotted during the course of the morning. As ice is their favorite platform for resting on, the more ice the more seals we had to watch. Adelie penguins were also seen, some in small groups standing around, waiting perhaps for something. Other lone individuals left tracks in the snow and we could admire their zigzag paths and sometimes confused-looking figure-eight circuits and wondered if the penguins were lost or just being indecisive about where to go next. A few weren’t sure what to make of the huge looming hull of our ship and walked or tobogganed hurriedly into the water and to safety.
Just after lunch our journey south came to an abrupt end. A thick line of ice with no clear water at all lay ahead of us and stretched as far as we could see on either side. Only 8 miles from the Antarctic Circle, it was a disappointment to some to have to turn around and head north, but there was simply no way to continue through such thick ice. The adventure in getting to this furthest south destination though had been marvelous.
The sun continued to shine as we turned and searched for a place for an afternoon excursion. Just at the northern end of Crystal Sound lay a group of small low-lying islands called Extension Reef where a few huge icebergs had become grounded in the shallow water. The Zodiacs were launched and we set out to soak up more sun, admire these massive ice shapes, peer at a few Adelie penguins and crabeater seals up close and partake of a glass of Glogg, kindly distributed in the boats by our hotel manager Henrik and his team.
