Growlers, bergs and bergy-bits

LOCATION: 12.26am, 63 degrees in latitude, 55 degrees in longitude and travelling at 1.9 knots.

SINCE RICHARD spotted the first ‘berg through the fog last night they have been flowing thick and fast past our camera lenses.

And soon after that -"land!" The word we have being waiting for has us rushing to the decks and bridge for the first glimpse of the Antarctic Peninsula on our third day of sailing.



It’s all on!





From all sides of the ship, growlers, bergy-bits, tabular icebergs and the rounded undersides of those that have toppled onto their sides gleam bright and white in the sunshine.
Polarising lenses and sunglasses are dug out of cabins and are added to the layers of fleece and cameras that thicken with each degree we sail further south. Every minute brings something new and wonderful…

• Portside - the reddish bluffs of the Peninsula and penguins porpoising swiftly between shore and ship.
• At 30 degrees to the bow - the rubble of Norwegian explorer Larsen’s hut.
• Against the sky, the unmistakable shapes of penguins riding ‘berg calved from glaciers.
• And gliding in bursts of astonishing grace - the little snow petrels that inspired some of first poetry written in the southern seasThe dove-like seabirds (incidentally known as ‘stinkers’ for the foul and oily substance they spit in self-defence) so touched the sealers and whalers amid the blood and stench of their days that the hardest and uneducated of men penned poetry in their honour.

I leave you now to join the others for lunch; we are alongside Paulet Island where we hope to land this afternoon.

Yours,
excitedly,
Stephanie

PS: Growlers and bergy-bits are official terms for chunks of ice less than 1m in height, and 1-4m in height respectively.