Graeme Ger Antarctic: Deep into the Antarctic peninsula

8 Jan 2012 An all day, sailing day on our way further south to the Antarctic Peninsular. Today is all about lectures and eating as usual.

The first morning lecture was Ray on his year in charge of the Mawson station Feb 1963 to March 1964. He lead possibly the last dog sledge expedition on the Antarctic. Three of them with 16 dogs and 2 sledges travelled from Mawson to the Amery ice shelf. Starting on the 19th November they travelled 1750 Km taking 87 days. A great achievement and was possibly why he had a mountain named after him and was awarded the polar medal.

We then had a lecture from the rock man on the science of icebergs,sea ice and glaciers, amazing and informative.

After lunch Brian showed a video that was made for the discovery channel a few years ago. It was set in Madagascar, it was great and Brian is so excitable that we all found it very funny. I bet that the animals at the Calgary zoo in Canada got excited when Brian was the manager. The bird man on life of penguins and our leader David on the plans for the Antarctic peninsular rounded out the day. But then it all started, icebergs everywhere and some big ones. The boat made a 2 hour detour to see a very big iceberg and we were lucky to see it calved off a big section. One of the passengers got the photo of the trip of the ice falling.

Now 10.30 at night and we have just witnessed a great sunset with icebergs in the foreground and dead calm seas with the young wild ones doing a conga line on the bow of the ship. Just special, can't believe we are here. Everyone is having fun and as it was Maggie's birthday today the happy hour was busy. Maggie is one of the staff and we all love to be in her zodiac as she is so much fun. Still very bright as we went to bed just after 11pm but seems like 4 pm.