January 21, 2013

We have been waiting all day for the ice to drift slowly out of the bay. It has been clearing well but some still remains in the head of the bay. This evening the Belgians arrived and we established contact on the VHF radio. They are already clearing a site with their vehicles so that we have a level base for depositing cargo as it is unloaded. The plan is to try and bring the ship alongside t…

This stop-frame video shows SA Agulhas arriving at Crown Bay yesterday (sorry for the delay, technical issues). See the ship sail up to the ice shelf and then retreat back to moor against a tabular ice berg. The ice shelf was too high to start unloading, so it was decided that she would be better off moored further out to sea than risk becoming trapped by pack ice. We are hoping that we will b…

Check out our Flickr account for the latest images from the expedition. We have uploaded lots of stunning photographs taken from the ship off Crown Bay this morning. Plenty of ice, a few moody shots of the team and even a bit of wildlife to enjoy. Check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecoldestjourney/ Or follow the link to Flickr by clicking any of the thumbnails on the bottom right…

The following update was sent to Operations HQ late last night by Anton Bowring, but due to poor comms on the ship only arrived this morning: “We arrived in Crown Bay at about 3pm. We ended up spending most of the afternoon and early evening trying to find out where we can berth. There is a lot of broken bay-ice which is in-penetrable for this ship. So we have decided to lie off until tomorrow.