Day 9 First feet on Antarctica

Chris here. (Google earth location s64.49,w63.29)

What a full day!!. We left our safe anchorage in the Melchior Islands at 4 o'clock this morning enroute to Port Lockroy. At 7am the shout of "whale!" went through the boat. We all tumbled out of bed to see group of four whales around the boat. It looked like a family group and was a
great way to start the day. Our first close up view of these magnificent creatures. The weather during our transit to Port Lockroy was generally rain and low cloud but the breaks in the cloud only added to the dramatic nature of the scenery. We witnessed massive cliffs and glaciers with ice cliffs 100' high tumbling into the sea. Steve the skipper navigated us carefully avoiding bergy bits and slowly manoeuvring us through patches of brash ice. Despite the weather everyone was keen to be on deck and witness the dramatic scenery.

Arriving in Port Lockroy there were two other vessels, a former Russian ice breaker acting as a cruise ship and the massive Marco Polo cruise ship. On a small island in the middle of the bay there is a former British Antarctic
Survey base which is now run as a museum and post office during the summer months. We have anchored under close to glaciers which are actively calving. When a large piece of ice calves into the sea there is a sound like thunder which echoes around this sheltered anchorage. On another small
island in the middle of Port Lockroy there are penguin rookeries. It was strange to see penguins standing around in their formal evening wear being watched by cruise ship passengers corralled into small colonies dressed in
identical red waterproof jackets.

Fortunately as we arrived the weather cleared and the decision was made that we would all go ashore and practice skills such as crevasse rescue and then go for a short ski tour. Getting gear ready took well over an hour - we have to make sure that crampons and ice axes don't puncture the zodiac dinghies.
After practice at crevasse rescue and safety briefings from the guides the
weather cleared. We skied up a gentle slope with Guy Cotter leading us
safely around crevasses on the small glacier above our landing site. This
was a great opportunity for everyone to stretch their legs. Two of the
group stuck to snow shoes and didn't quite get as far as the main group.

During the ski down the glacier we saw more humpbacks surfacing in the bay
just as the sun broke through against a backdrop of glaciers, ice cliffs and
mountains - fantastic!! Walking back to the beach for our trip back to the
yacht a gentoo penguin arrived amongst our group and promptly went to sleep
on a rock. The masses of fleece and gore-tex on display clearly was too
much for the little creature. We were also dive bombed by Antarctic Terns
protecting their nesting sites a couple of hundred yards along the beach.
All in all a perfect end to our first day ashore in Antarctica. To make
things even better waiting for us on the yacht was a great vegetable curry
prepared by Tamsin and Chloe, two of the crew. I'm writing this shortly
before we turn in for an early night as Alan and I plan to climb Mount
Jansen tomorrow with Guy Cotter. We are missing home but the experience of
today has been wonderful.