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| The moody skies continue. |
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| This iceberg looks like its been calved recently compared with the next. |
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| See how weathered this one is? |
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| Its sleek appearance looks like the product of wind as well as water. |
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| The snow appears to be shearing off the land in the background. |
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| You can maybe appreciate how tricky the exposure is here. I should have gone lower for the ice, perhaps. |
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| Ripples are always pleasing in 3D. |
The captain of the Ocean Endeavour on this expedition was Captain Harrison. There is a route to the Antarctic Circle called the Harrison Passage. It's not named after our good captain, but after the English inventor of the marine chronometer, the device which revolutionised navigation at sea in the 18th Century. This will become relevant the day after we visit Orne Harbour, but we are forewarned that we are planning to use it to make a break for the Antarctic Circle. It will, we are told, be quite a feat of navigation. I don't doubt this, but my inner child combined with a pre-dinner cocktail made it hard for me not to be amused by Captain Harrison attempting to traverse his own passage.
That comes later. For the present time we are in Orne Harbour, which marked our first footsteps on the actual continent of Antarctica, all other landings having been on islands. As far as I'm concerned the islands are just as much part of Antarctica as the rest of the peninsula, but it can be a contentious subject, so let the record state that here's where it happened. I have to say it didn't seem any more or less magical than the other places we'd visited, having no real sense from our perspective of how far the geography we're in extends.
Orne Harbour is another place discovered by Adrien de Gerlache during his Belgian Antarctic Expedition. This time however, it is thought to have been named by Norwegian whalers who subsequently operated in the region. It was, for our purposes, a steep hill with a chinstrap colony at the top. The weather, as suggested by the photographs, had taken a turn for the broody while approaching by Zodiac. By the time we got there conditions were pretty wet and my camera remained safely stashed in my dry bag. This was definitely one of the moments when you had to be there, because the only record of it is my memory of being there, which despite all the pictures I took was my priority. It's the experience that counts, not the trophies. Collecting trophies is ultimately meaningless, especially with no room in our already bursting luggage for any shanghaied penguins.
I've talked about how difficult getting around in the snow could be, and this was the toughest on the expedition. Before we landed, the crew had dug steps winding back and forth up the steep hill. This effort was as necessary as it was appreciated. It must have been exhausting work. Conditions weren't great for this one, and so I made my way slowly up the hillside, pausing frequently to rest and decide whether I wanted to go higher. Despite the weather progress was very sweaty and I was glad of my water bottle. After some time my legs and back were really starting to ache with the effort of trudging uphill and the chinstrap rookery at the top still looked a long way away. Judging that it would be best to make my way down while I still had some gas in my tank, so to speak, I reluctantly acknowledged that not everything was for me, and descended while I still could without making an arse of myself.
The next day we visited Damoy Point, en route to our destiny with the Harrison Passage. This was our first big departure from the region we had spent the last few days travelling around. It was also our first encounter with signs of civilisation on the peninsula, other ships excepted. Damoy Point is home to both an Argentinian and a British hut, both near one another. The Argentine hut was built by their navy in 1953 and is used as a refuge. The British hut was a more recent addition from 1975. It was built by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and until 1993 operated as an air transit station for Rothera Research Station when the station couldn't be reached by sea. Planes could land and take off from a nearby glacier. The place itself was discovered and named by Charcot, after a Paris dealer who provisioned his expedition.
I was very excited to be there. I hadn't made the trip just for the spectacle, I'm also fascinated by exploration of the continent and the chance to visit structures which have been part of that strange, isolated history was one I relished. Additionally, one of the expedition crew had worked for BAS in the '70s and had actually stayed in the British hut. It is now managed by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and as such is effectively a small museum, containing artifacts in place as they would have been during typical use. It was great to look around, and John, the ex-BAS man gave a good account of what it was like to live there. There was a Union Jack flying outside, which I posed with like the over-excited idiot I was.
The weather was better than it had been the previous day, but it was still raining too much to get my View-Master camera out. On the whole it wasn't unpleasant though, and with a long but easy climb up to the glacier it was an excellent opportunity to find some space away from everyone and drink in the experience fully. I can only imagine what it is like for visitors to Antarctica who don't have the luxury of a warm and well-supplied ship waiting for them nearby.
Later in the afternoon we approached the Lemaire Channel, which we had previously traversed northwards when there had been a medical emergency. With the weather closing in on us, talk of the Harrison Passage beyond it became increasingly academic. It was our last chance to reach the Antarctic Circle. I wouldn't say that tensions were high, but there was definitely an air of expectation. We gathered on deck, mountains towering over us either side of the narrow channel, waiting to hear whether the attempt could proceed.
By this point I had made my peace with the idea of not reaching the circle. Like the trophies I mentioned earlier, it would be a talking point but as an experience, what exactly? Well, I can't say because as it transpired the way was completely blocked by a massive iceberg. There was no way past it, and needless to say no means to move it. It was technically possible to bypass it on the open sea but weather reports there were not good and it would bring its own risks.
So that was that. We were not going to cross the Antarctic Circle. This was fine. The ever-resourceful Steffi had liaised with our thwarted captain to present an alternative plan, and one which I was very excited about. We would be heading north to Deception Island, stopping at Cierva Cove on the way.
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