What a lovely day to be out on the water! -120C in the sun when it was there and a light breeze as the three little IRB’s headed for the Sorsdal Glacier and Kazak Island for a number of little jobs. Knowing it was going to be cold I went in ready. Two sets of thermals, socks, gloves and then fleece pants and two fleece tops, neck warmer, balaclava, and beanie. Then over the top was an immersion suit and a pair of sunnies.
You can also see that I nearly got crapped on by a Skua!
The sea ice is starting to harden and make travelling in the IRB’s a little difficult at times as they are not designed to break ice! It is pretty amazing to see the ice as it is actually elastic at the moment and moves with the wake of the boat without cracking. It was about five centimetres thick. Here is hoping that it will not slow down the Aurora Australis too much on its way to get us.
Moving further south towards the Sorsdal Glacier we turned off the engine for about half an hour and drifted while the Soundman recorded the noises of the glacier as it meets the ocean. He did this with his hydrophone over the edge of the boat and really captured some amazing sounds.
We were also given the task of having a look for a piece of Antarctic heritage supposedly on Zolotov Island. It was getting a bit late and colder so we did not look for long. It is a rock cairn placed there or somewhere down this end of the Vestfold’s by a fella called Wilkins many moons ago and was one of the first landings in the area.
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