Conditions: Snowing
Air Temp: 2 deg C
Sea Temp: 0 deg C
Wind: Variable 5 to 15 knots
Sea State: Slight
Visibility: Poor
Barometer: 992 mb and rising
Latitude: 64 deg 42 mins South
Longitude: 62 deg 38 mins West
Thursday March 1st, 2001
2030 hrs: The day turned out different to expectations. Starting fine and sunny when we departed Port Lockroy just before midday, we soon headed into extensive thick grey snow cloud as we cleared south through the Peltier Channel and turned left, then gradually onto a more northerly course into the southern Gerlache Strait.
The radar was needed to “see” through the snow, and to look out for icebergs from the cockpit meant wearing snow goggles – or see nothing.
We hoped to end up at Neko Harbour, but by the time we passed through the extensive ice of Paradise Harbour, and rounded the red-hutted Chilean Antarctic base at Waterboat Point, it became evident that we would not be able to spend a night at Neko unless we were prepared to fend off bergy bits all night.
The ice everywhere is breaking up in the warm conditions. In the past two days we have witnessed a huge increase in icebergs, bergy bits and brash ice. Having said that, the temperatures are warm but while we were at anchor in the inner harbour of Port Lockroy last night the sea froze all around us, to quite a thick slush in places. Motoring the inflatable dinghy through the ice to meet Chris on the Multanovskiy took patience – the alternative increasing the chance of a ruptured tube.
John Cope
Waterboat Point is another site that has a colourful history attached to it. John Cope, (who had been with Shackleton on his 1914-17 expedition that ended with their vessel crushed by the ice and sunk, and that most famous of small boat voyages, from Elephant Island to South Georgia), set out on an expedition of his own in late 1920, and was landed on the Danco coast on 12th January 1921.
He and his three colleagues named it Waterboat Point after a ruined water boat that had been beached there eight years earlier by a Norwegian factory ship. The boat was nine metres long and they used it as their sleeping quarters and living area. Unfortunately there was only one metre of headroom, which made moving about hazardous, so they built a tiny hut alongside the boat and constructed a new “lounge” above the cramped sleeping quarters.
By the end of February, after making a few short journeys, they knew they would not be able to cross the mountain ranges to reach the Weddell Sea. So their expedition of intended exploration and wish to carry on where Nordenskjold had left off (see the extraordinary tale in Log no. 70) was at an end.
Two of them left on a factory ship they had met. The other two decided to stay. “It was strange and a little frightening to be left as we were, two people alone on a vast continent equal in area to Europe and Australia combined, with a year to pass before we are due to see any other human beings again.”
They killed many penguins and seals to store for food, but as winter approached, the weather deteriorated. “Everything freezes. Tonight my ink-pot has frozen up and the mince froze as we were eating it. We sit and shiver and try to laugh at our discomforts; it’s not much use to moan and groan.”
By September their clothes were in tatters and they had eaten minced seal almost every night since the beginning. Finally a whaler picked them up on January 13, 1922. One of the men was only 19 years old when first landed, the other in his early twenties.
Whale Catalogue
During our day underway, we spotted 2 humpback whales – with Chris taking a photo of one of them “sounding”. You may not think that this is very significant in itself, but apart from occasionally producing photos of whales in the Log, we also send the same pictures for identification purposes to “The Antarctic Humpback Whale Catalogue” – run by the College of the Atlantic, in Maine in the USA.
They store all such photos and endeavour to match a positive sighting (tail or fin from a humpback whale we have sighted here in Antarctica) with another of the same whale somewhere else on the planet. This is an international project investigating movements of humpback whales between the Southern Ocean and lower latitudes. For example, three individuals photographed in the Gerlache Strait (where we were today) have also been photographed approximately 8,334 km away off the coast of Colombia. This migration route crosses the equator and is the longest known migration for a non-human mammal.
So we are now back at Cuverville Island, after a six-hour motor. But we have anchored much closer to the island in a “pool” surrounded by shallower waters than previously. Hopefully, the bergs that are also gathering here in increasing numbers, are too deep and will be kept out. But an anchor watch will be posted all the same, just in case!
Tomorrow we plan to head further northeast up the coast, to visit places we haven’t seen before. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the winds are kind and the snow clears away.
Best wishes from all onboard.
Peter.
Sir Peter Blake
"Having vision is not enough. Change comes through realising the vision and turning it into a reality. It is easy to espouse worthy goals, values and policies; the hard part is implementation."
Learn about Sir Peter Blake and his journeys around the globe