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Day 11: Heading further south

Shraddha:

Our expedition team has been trying very hard to give us the best experiences and opportunities. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.

We arrived to Possession Island early in the morning and the team sent out a scout boat to figure out best landing sites. The plan was to find a post mail box (treasure box) as we had a special team member with us that had been on an expedition that had used it.

However, there was too much pack ice, large swells and no good landing spots.

From ship at Possesion island
Doesn’t look bad, does it? Kind of peaceful
Here is me on the deck. I could barely keep my eyes open as it was very windy

So, this was scrapped and we headed off to Cape Hallett instead.

We couldn’t have imagined more perfect weather as we got sunny skies, glassy sea and had grandeur of nature before us with mountains, glaciers, huge tabular icebergs and of course wildlife.

This picture tells you all you need to know about the conditions here 😊
Peaceful

As my group missed out on our photography zodiac, I was offered it again and I did go. I do feel that it felt easier this time to stand in the boat and take photos. It could have been combination of the glassy sea conditions and at least a little bit of experience.

I took too many pictures on this ride. I have chosen a few that tell something.

These three are of the same iceberg

The striations on this iceberg tell us that this flipped very recently
Wide view of the same iceberg
When we went around the iceberg, we found the part that was recently on the top. Gives you on idea of how much of the iceberg is underwater. I also loved how it looks like a vase floating in the water
Look at the mouthful of teeth
Wedell Seal
As you can see the seals love to rest on the floating ice

We got to this Penguin just as he escaped the leopard seal hunting it.

The black head in water is leopard seal. Can you find the Penguin on the ice?
You can see the Penguin clearly here. It is checking where the seal is. The seal is still hoping to get lucky

You never know what you will find in the wild

Three Penguins and a seal both on the same ice
The Penguin closest to the seal is reaching for the oil gland that he can then spread on his feathers
This tableau was within view of the ship, but we only saw when we got close

There were many tabular icebergs in the water. I took two pictures to give some perspective on the scale.

Kayakers and iceberg
The ship, the grandeur and the tabular iceberg. These big icebergs were as big as 2-3 story tall and 50 meters wide

Mayuresh will tell his story of his zen ride.

After such a beautiful day, we lingered here in the ship through dinner and finally the ship started moving south.

We all gathered on the observation deck hoping to find another Emperor Penguin. The day did not disappoint and we ended with another sighting.

My zen zodiac ride (from Mayuresh). Day 2 of zen zodiac ride was more zen ride. Although the photography is not allowed on the zen ride, our team lead allowed it because the surrounding were very compelling for photography. And guess what immediately many of the members pulled out their cameras. Finally we did park our zodiac in secluded area as glacier water flowed in the sea. As I closed my eyes, I did snooze and snored. So it was rather funny for most of the members. I felt good though because I was able to chant Gayathri Mantra and Ganesh Stuti.

Our meditation spot. I was able to pick up small iceberg and felt the surroundings in true sense.
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