Snow Hill Island – Temple & Iceberg Trails: A Journey Through Asperger's

15 November 2022 – Afternoon.

During Lunch the Captain annouced that they are looking for a spot to “dock” the ship next to the sea ice and each boat group can have their “15 minutes of glory” walking on Shakleton’s Sea Ice in the Weddell sea.

Not accounting for global warming – it was always said that Antarctica doubles in surface during the winter months as sea ice forms as extensions to ice covering the continent.

Seasonal Sea Ice coverage 2021 – Source www.epa.gov/

Although we were surrounded by loose ice floes this was our (seriously once in a lifetime) opportunity to set foot on that mass of sea ice connected to the continent – the very edge of Antarctica.

Everyone stood by the railing and watched the captain “parallel park”/dock this huge vessel next to a relatively straight edged part of the ice. No words!

Then the gangplank went down and the Expedition team checked the surface and thickness of the ice… you could hear a pin drop on that deck… bated breath…

Thumbs up – it’s a go! Cheers and awe! Everyone checked the Hurtigruten App for the timings…

While waiting for our chance to go I walked around the ship taking pictures of the other groups landings…

Watching the other groups and Expedition team on the sea ice.

And a little surpise came into view…

Then it came our turn to go… it was over so quickly…

Weddell Seals (some of us anyways) and Expedition teammembers Dom and Joaquin in yellow.

Face blindness strikes again…

This photo of Luciano during the Sea Ice landing just reminded me again – we had a long conversation there by the gangplank that day. I cannot remember if it was that evening or the next day in the science centre we talked about the landing again and I said to him “Somebody told me that in all their time with Hurtigruten this is the second time they have done such a landing where he was part of the expedition team”… and he looks at me baffled (and I think a little offended)…

“Linda, that was me – I told you that.”

Oops, awkward! At least I remembered the conversation – that counts for something, right?

Sea ice – Weddell Sea close to Snow Hill Island

And then it was time to gather the flags and cones, get everyone aboard and gracefully the captain pushed away from our impromtu dock and we were off to the Falklands.

15 November 2022 – Morning.

Game of the Day – Riddles

Woke up to a beautiful view of Brown Bluff , but it was too windy and the swells too high to safely use the Zodiacs – so no Continental Landing #3 for us.

Disappointed, at 7:25 we waved byes byes to Brown Bluff and headed to the other side of the Peninsula, into the Weddell Sea, to see what we could see – (sorry.. I had to!)

Turns out some beautiful icebergs – and then at 7:45 our first Tabular iceberg, which this area is so famous for.

I was mesmerised as we sailed round James Ross Island in the direction of Snow Hill Island.

You are here – approximately, kinda – The Red Arrow

We sailed on and the sea ice became more prominent.

And then around 11:20 the annoucement came – and EVERYONE migrated en-masse to the bow viewpoint on Deck 7.. someone has spotted an Emperor Penguin!

Just the previous day someone had asked Lancy about seeing Emperors and he stated that it was highly unlikely as they do not usually venture this far north. In fact, this was Lancy’s first Emperor penguin sighting.

[Subsequently I have learned that there is a small colony of Emperors on Snow Hill Island and what we thought were roque travellers could quite possibly belong to that colony. We were practically ‘in their backyard’. This colony has become the focus of some Weddell Sea themed expeditions – the highlight of that itinary.]

This penguin was not extremely co-operative as far was photograph opportunities go.