Day 13 Possession Islands

Thursday 19 January 2023

We have sailed again overnight and awake alongside the Possession Islands that are at the other end of the Cape Adare promontory. The sun is shining (about 2C) and the sea is flat, and we wait to see what the activities will be today. We will still have a leisurely start as the Parakeets will be first off the ship today. Aaron and Samuel have gone out in a Zodiac to check out the conditions. They decide that we will move closer to one of the other islands (we are beside Possession Island) as the swell is making landing difficult. Foyn Island is apparently named after a Norwegian grenade harpoon maker. The island are volcanic in origin and there are towering basalt cliffs. We have the choice whether to go on a zodiac cruise around the island or to go ashore but we are warned that it will be a difficult landing with a steep climb up the rocks where we get out. There is an Adelie penguin colony at the top.

We decide that going ashore is a must and we are certainly not disappointed. We later learn that no one on the ship has ever landed on this island before and Aaron’s father and one other previously tried landing elsewhere on the island but gave up. As we climb up the rocks we come out onto a flat area with a frozen lake in the middle. Scree slopes are all around, crowded with penguin nests and masses of chicks. Matt and Erin are the chosen research assistants today and they get to gather penguin carcasses from this season so that Steve and Kate can measure leg bones. Some egg shells are collected and Steve is trying to dig down through the fresher layers of ornithological soils to the base layer below.

We are able to walk around the edge of the frozen lake and then climb up to the top of the ridge. Wow! We stop every few metres to take another photo as the amazing vista opens up (and of course we can’t help ourselves but to take yet more penguin photos). From the top of the ridge we have nearly 360 degree views and it is absolutely spectacular – there really are not enough superlatives to describe it. We feel so privileged. The sky is blue and clear and we can see the TransAntarctic mountains start to poke out above the clouds. We see Mt Sabine (3700m) and Mt Herschel (3335m). The sea all around is filled with icebergs and drift ice and we can clearly see the strong and swiftly moving current (Ross Sea gyre) that brings all the ice up from the south on this side of the Ross Sea and keeps the coast relatively free of ice. The ship has had to move away from the ice. We have over an hour on the island and are very reluctant to leave but we must head back to the ship so that we can continue down the coast to see other things.

Back on board we hear that one zodiac had a leopard seal come up around them and 3 zodiacs had penguins jump on board (presumably to avoid the leopard seal) – 2 jumped straight back out again but one had to be evicted.

: Boarding the zodiac in calm weather

: Heading to Foyn Island

: Frozen lake, Foyn Island

: Kate showing Erin and Matt the ropes

: Kate showing Erin and Matt the ropes

: Dead penguin chick

: Up towards the ridge

: Steve looking at ornithological soils

: Steve looking at ornithological soils

: Foyn Island

: Adelie penguins, Foyn Island

: Adelie penguins, Foyn Island

: Adelie penguins, Foyn Island

: Adelie penguins, Foyn Island

: Mt Herschel

: Tabular Icebergs

: Mt Sabine and Mt Herschel in distance

: Adelie penguins, Foyn Island

: Adelie penguin feeding chick

: Are you my mother?

: Are you my mother?

: Adelie chick calling

: Adelie chick calling

: Adelie chick calling

Once all the zodiacs are back on board, and we have just finished lunch (3.00pm) we begin to sail again – down to Cape Hallett. I tried to find Cape Hallett on the map and I think it was then I really started to appreciate the vastness of Antarctic. It is the size of Europe and Australia put together and even just the relatively small section of the Ross Sea that we are visiting is over 800km long. We go up to the viewing lounge and get to see the huge distance that is Mowbray Bay between us and Cape Hallett. There are huge icebergs including the geometric tabular bergs. We can see the TransAntarctic Mountains in the background.

We pass Cape Roget which is the site of an Emperor Penguin colony in winter when the Ross Sea is iced over – they nest up against the cliffs. There is still an awful lot of ice around now and we find out at the briefing that the whole bay is too full of ice so we will head further south where it appears to be clearer where we are aiming for at Terra Nova Bay or perhaps Ross Island. We can try again for the sites we have missed on the way back out. We are scheduled for our daily briefing when the announcement came that there had been an emperor penguin sighting. This must be the only place that everything comes to a halt for a penguin. Everyone races up onto decks with camera gear in the hope of getting their first glimpse. As it turned out we didn’t really get more than a glimpse because it was a long way in the distance and by the time the ship had floated through the ice it had moved further away. Even those with 400x zoom really only got enough to see that there was yellow on the penguin.

At the rescheduled briefing, after Bryan talks about the columnar basalt that was formed by the volcanoes and that we see as hexagonal rocks, Aaron tells us that we will stay in amongst all the ice floes while we have dinner but then they will try to find a suitable ice floe for us to be able to go out and land on. We can go down from 9.30 onwards to be ferried out via zodiac. They have been very efficient and found 3 suitable ice floes close by so we are taken out and have 10 minutes out there to take lots of photos. It is 10.00 at night and the sun is still high in the sky. The whole ship’s crew get to go out onto the floe’s – many of them have never seen snow before so it is a great experience for them.

Once we are all back on board we will head out into clearer waters and begin our journey further south. I am tempted to stay up late to see the midnight sun but decide that sleep interests me more tonight. I was awake at 12.30 and peeked out the blinds to see a strange twilight.