Cape Adare: Before the Landing …

Sunday, 1 February  2015 (Part I)
In the Ice — Ross Sea
Current Position: 71°12’ S / 170°20’ E
Temps: 34F (1C) @ 7:30a (UTC +12)
Distance Since Ushuaia: 4,593 NM (5,285 miles / 8,506 km)

Computers of the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1.5 tons.
Popular Mechanics Magazine, March 1949

Ortelius was moving slowly along the Adare Peninsula when Don made his wake up call at 7:30a.  Huh?  What happened to Cape Hallet?  Well, turns out heavy, multi-year ice kept us more than 12 nautical miles (14 miles/22 km) offshore.  The wind wasn’t too friendly either, so the decision was made in the wee hours of the morning to try our luck further north at Cape Adare instead.

  Expedition Day 24 … early plans are a bust; but the rest of the day is spectacular.

The 60 nautical miles (69 miles/111 km) we still had to go to reach our destination gave us time for a future plans briefing by Don before the activities got going.  Essentially, once we finish playing around today, we will have to start making our way through the ice to get out into the Southern Ocean.  The Spirit of Enderby has been in heavy ice all day, with more to go … we have no idea how the sea ice will treat us, how much of it there is, and how long it is going to take us to get out of it.  Boo!  Hiss!  But you play by Mother Nature’s rules in this part of the world.

How much and how thick?  those sea ice conditions …

… will determine the ease with which Ortelius will make its way north from Cape Adare.

We have a saying in Turkish that essentially translates as “one eats, the other watches;
and so ensues pandemonium" … in this instance, however, the southern giant petrel
that is not feeding seems content … perhaps because it has had its share already.

Adélie Penguins rafting by Ortelius.

Gorgeous morning for our last play day on the continent.

Also on the schedule for the morning was Victoria’s lecture about the Southern Cross Expedition of 1898-1900 led by Carsten Borchgrevink.  A visit to the hut they lived in was on today’s agenda, so the lecture was timely.  But I will leave what I gleaned from Victoria’s words for the post about the hut itself.

The expedition that started the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

The Southern Cross Expedition achieved a lot of scientific work after setting up Camp Ridley.

When we arrived at Adare Peninsula we were not surprised to find sea ice all the way to the horizon.  Going ashore with zodiacs was out, but the pilots were standing by to provide taxi service to get us to our landing site.  While we waited for our turn, we were entertained by the spectacular scenery and the occasional wildlife sightings.

Welcome to Adare Peninsula; Cape Adare is on the other side of the landmass.

Southern Giant Petrel

Shadows on the ice floes.  Guess who those two people are ;-)

“Good Morning,” calls out Captain Ernesto.  I oblige by taking a photo of him with Captain Tuomo
who is getting a free ride on our voyage — “learning the Antarctic ropes” so to speak … he will
take over the helm for the trip back to Ushuaia when Capt Ernesto disembarks with us in Bluff.

Mui and I would have flown last, but for a special request I made … necessitated by the fact that our two-man Group H follows Group G in the rotation, and I refused to do so.  The whys and wherefores is a long story that I won’t get into.  Suffice to say it has to do with “money not buying manners.”  When I politely asked Jim for a favor after explaining my dilemma, he understood completely.  Turns out that the circumstances leading to my request have not gone unnoticed either by him or the rest of the team.  So, we flew in conjunction with Group E today.  And what a flight it was … WOW!  WOW!  WOW!

That’s our air taxi; once the helipad clears, it will fly in to pick us up.

Up we went … with aerial views of breathtaking scenery in every direction.  We were told that we would be doing flightseeing on the way back, so the ride was short this time.  I took a few photos, but then put the camera away, relaxed, and enjoyed it all with my eyes.

See that flat area to the right of the peninsula?  That’s our landing zone …

... But you will have to wait until the next post for the rest of the story ... this one is already long enough with just “some” of the many, many, many photos I took before we even got to our landing zone.

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