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| Ice floes fractured from our passing ship |
Monday, November 13 - At Sea to Weddell Sea
Today we are sailing from the South Orkney islands to Snow Hill island in the western Weddell Sea. The Endurance was built for polar navigation and is rated a Polar Class PC5. That means it can operate year round in first year medium ice. As we sailed along, we were moving through large ice floes - splitting them as some of them hit the hull, and dodging through the larger ice bergs. Sometime we went so slow, it hardly felt like we were moving. Fascinating. I love the ice - the big bergs going by so close, and the flat floes. It was fun to see penguins on some of the ice floes. I took a number of photos of them - on reviewing the photos, I could see a lone Emperor penguin in the middle of a group of Adelies. Wow!
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| The Endurance pushes these floes aside, splitting some as needed |
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| Watching for penguins and seals on the floes, and for whales on the horizon |
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| A group of Adelie penguins on an ice floe with a lone Emperor penguin standing on the right |
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| Evening light at 10:30 PM |
By evening, we had arrived at our desired location. Eventually, we turned north and moved into position to park in the “fast ice” for the night. The captain put the nose of the Endurance in place in the ice and just stayed there for the night. I kept waiting for the sunset. It officially set at “8:37” but on my camera, I have a picture of the sunset at 9:30. Still a beautiful sunset glow at 10:17, which is when we pulled into the fast ice. We could see an emperor penguin out on the ice!
I checked the skies again at midnight, as I was hoping to see the southern lights and the night sky seemed pretty clear. However, there was a significant sun glow in the western sky and it wasn’t dark at all. Next, got up at 2:30 (one hour before sunrise) - and saw a very pretty pink dawn with lots of light. And again, up at 4:30, and it was light out, reflecting on all the large icebergs. Crazy! Midnight sun…
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| The map of the Antactic Peninsula, with our location at Snow Hill island |
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| An Emperor penguin out for an evening stroll on the fast ice |
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| Night sky at midnight - the darkest the night will get |
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| Midnight Sun at 2:30 AM |
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| Sun's up - 4:30 AM |
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