Gday everyone!!
Day 8 to 10 is now out enjoy the images and read the text if you are into it! As usual I extract parts of my logbook so you can experience a bit of this journey to Antarctica.
We set sail to Coureville Island after a night at Enterprise Island and let me tell about this magnificent place. A well protected bay with a ship wrack which we pull along side. Looking at this rusty vessel that no one onboard had a clew of how and when it end up there we could only try to imagine what happen on the day the ship came to decompose here. As we arrived was not easy to pass the lines to tide down our boat so I manage to climb up to the wrack and pass the needed lines. It was very rusty and in a well advance state of decomposition as the metal plates thinned by the cold air and harsh conditions of the Antarctica. I climbed trough the side of the boat I could see a lot of places where I shouldn’t neither touch or step while a dozen of birds protected their nests.
As I returned from the bow of the wrack I spotted a block of ice that we eventually use it to have a drink. But it was not easy to get it as it was in the center of the wrack and I had to go down there old rusty metal plates and to reach it I had to step on a slippery sea weed. I finally got close to the ice block, but still was not close enough. I could almost reach but I was around 20 cm short. I look around and in the meddle of the metal parts I see a 50 cm long piece of loose rusty metal that I used to drag the ice close enough so I could grab it with my hands. Success!!! We had a glass of Borovicka, a Slovenian drink that our chef brought onboard. We had a couple of drinks and then we went of to see the whales that where cruising just out side of the bay. The drone footage came out great too bad I miss my chance to go and film from close with the other cameras.
Just before I went to bed I as me, Hugo and Ricardo sand out side we eared a noise that catch our attention….as we look for it we see a 20m by 10m ice berg braking in 2. It was unreal not only the iceberg bracking by also how long it toke to stabilize.
The next morning we woke up to a surreal scenario around 30cm of snow on deck and small avalanches every where. We had some fun cleaning the deck and went on to move an iceberg out of our exit path from the bay as we set sail to Courville Island. One of the best places we visit. To give you an idea I felt like in the Alps . Big mountains all around with a magic natural light with a constant back ground noise of big avalanches, birds, seals, penguins and ice bergs braking and crashing against each other made a perfect sunny day into a unique day. Everywhere I looked was incredible it was so unreal that it looked that was out of an animated movie. This place looks like from another world but it is not. Its our own planet and nature is in charge, not the humans as we often think. Today was also shower day. Courville Island blessed us with a melting glacier that allowed us to retrieve water to refuel the fresh water tanks. Everyone that knows me well, knows I hate cold water but I could not go to Antarctica and not jump into the water, which by the way felt warmer then in my home town. After a deep in these cold waters I had a hot shower that made me feel another man after 7 days of not having a shower. The only down side was when I got out of the shower it was a shock as the shower was around 30 degrees Celsius and the inside of the boat was around 10 degrees…brrrr
It was a calm night until I was awaked by a strange noise. It was like the avalanche warning sound in the mountains. Some kind of horn or whistle and as the avalanches where part of the natural sound of tat place it did felt like it was someone provoking those avalanches. I thought I was dreaming at the beginning and end up to come out side to have a look but saw nothing. The only think that made me believe that I was not earing stuff in my head was that I was not the only one to ear it as some of the people onboard also listen it.
Peace out
Pedro
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