Lemaire Channel and Points South

With almost two days at sea I hope to catch up on the blogs I was unable to post while along the peninsula and in the Weddell Sea. One of the blogs that I lost was our adventure thought the Lemaire Channel into the Grandidier Channel and through the Crystal Sound in our attempt to reach the Antarctic Circle at Latitude 66 degrees, 30 minutes South. I recounted some of the trip in emails but want to capture at least the highlights in the blog.

We sailed through the narrow Lemaire Channel during sunset at about half past nine o'clock in the evening. The still waters made for fantastic reflections in the crisp light.



The channel is a narrow cut with glacier covered mountains soaring up from the sea.




We encountered some ice through the channel and by midnight we were in thick, almost continuos ice floes. The sound of ice splitting and splintering under the sharp bow was almost continuous. We would break into open water only to experience a shudder throughout the length of the ship as we rammed the next flow. We continued working our way well into Crystal Sound through ever heavier and thicker ice. The Explorer easily handled the three and four foot floes we experienced. Shortly after entering Crystal Sound broke free of the ice and had clear sailing only needing to navigate around massive ice bergs. We encountered the pack ice again on the southern end of Crystal Bay, about 25 miles north of the Antarctic Circle. We continued through the pack ice to within eight miles of the Antarctic Circle when we had to yield to the ice. The Explorer could handle the pack ice but we were in the midst of large ice bergs frozen in the pack ice. The ice bergs were more than a match for us.



We carefully turned around and returned north along the peninsula on our way to the Weddell Sea.



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Location:Scotia Sea