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Some bumping and thumping last night meant we had (finally) encountered our first icy speed bump in what has been an oceanic freeway to Davis. It was like we'd taken the "C" road with potholes, with the occasional bumping shaking us awake during the night. As a particularly witty contemporary VL once said to me (this morning actually) "deliberately turning into bad ice as you approach Davis is a time honoured tactic for gaining some breathing space." Absolutely right. I'm sure Davis is breathing a sigh of relief that events aren't about to get frantic immediately. We'll leave that until tomorrow...
The focsle head (the foredeck up at the pointy end of the ship) has become quite the place to be, with hardly souls spending inordinate amounts of time watching our bow smack its way through the ice. It's nice up there, away from the engine noise, with the unique sound of ice breaking; the crump and whoosh of splitting ice and snow. The "wish I had my camera" moment for me was seeing all the people up there crowded to one side of the focsle, camera lenses projecting from cold smiling faces, as a solitary Emperor penguin stood its ground and watched the ship crunching its way through the floe it commanded.
Estimating Davis fast ice edge tonight, at approximately 2000 hours local time. PowerPoint-free day promise kept.
Regards, Doug & Misty
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.