Off to a good start

Photo Credit: Matthew Phillips

Right, time for some retrospective catch-up on the blog.  Prior to my premature departure from KEP late January, when I last wrote from the South in November, I was on the RRS JCR heading northwards from Signy.

I finally made it to KEP on 25^th November, and absolutely love it.  The above photo is our official Christmas card to other Antarctic bases.  We’d had a festive dump of snow (not uncommon, even in summer) and had just finished decorating the church.  Merry with mulled wine we were coaxed outside for the shot, but a snowball fight was inevitable.  Unfortunately the first throw hit the camera lens dead on!

Before I get onto more about life at KEP, a catch up on the last part of my journey:

Heading South

It is now two weeks since I jetted off on my adventure South, and as I write this is feels like I’m going through a patch of turbulence again.  However I’m not on a plane - I am being jolted about as our ship, the JCR (James Clark Ross) makes her way through sea ice around the South Orkneys.  It is breathtakingly beautiful here. 

 

As the JCR pushes floes aside, krill is thrown up from ice shelves below the water and pure white Snow Petrels swoop down to pick up an easy meal.  They are silhouetted as they climb against the low dark clouds as flecks of darting bright white.  The scene around is monochrome, with the water an inky black and the ice floes glowing blindingly white even in the gloom of the clouds.  The snow flecked black ranges of the South Orkneys rise majestically from the ice but the peaks are truncated by the clouds.  Whispers of colour are provided by blue glacial ice in the mountains and icebergs.

Coronation Island, South Orkneys.  It really was black, white and blue!

Up on the Monkey Island (the highest accessible part of the ship outside) the sea ice stretches as far as the eye can see.  It will take us almost 24hrs to crawl our way out to open seas again and onwards to South Georgia.