Ross seas and icebergs

Mayuresh:

After our record of reaching the southern most point of voyage at Bay of Whales, we are now heading to Peter I island. This will be a long 7 day long cruising without any zodiac activity. The shorter route of 6 day cruising has been blocked by packed ice so our captain chose this safer although a longer route.

So not much to write as no active activities but I will take this as an opportunity to write about Ross Sea and icebergs that we have seen on these sea days.

Ross Sea: this is one of the famous body of water because it has a Ross Ice shelf at the south end and many explorers used Ross Sea Ice Shelf or Ross Island as a starting point for the South Pole expeditions.

Ross Sea has hazards of packed ice and icebergs that one has to navigate through in these waters. Also the sea is very deep about 4300 meters deep and if you drop a stone here, it may take 4 hours to reach the bottom. It also has consistent water temperatures of -1C from top to bottom. So deep water big/colossal squid are seen here.

Icebergs: we learned a lot about icebergs and have developed tremendous admiration for them. With only 10% of the icebergs above the water surface and seen by us means 90% is below the water and we fail to understand the actual size of them.