Aboard SA Agulhas

Well it’s a week since we left Cape Town and the oven baked sides of Table Mountain seem a world away as we plod south at somewhere between 8 and 11 knots, buffeted by strong winds and swells of 5m+. At the current latitude of around 53o South, our target of 70o still seems a very long way off, with the next 17 degrees (approx. 1000 nautical miles) expected to take us another week. In addition,…

Geoff Long reports from aboard the SA Agulhas about his multi-faceted role within the expedition about leaving home, helping Ran find his kit and selling our story to the South Africans… It seems incredible that it is only 12 days since I left the UK, shortly after the hectic run-up to Christmas and the associated mad rush around the country to visit relatives. So much has happened sinc…

(by Brian Newham) You might like the latest ice image – it’s changed quite a lot since we lasted posted in mid-Dec. Ice still extends about 150 miles off the coast but it looks quite broken and there appears to be an obvious breach in our area of interest – we are aiming to make landfall at approx S70 E023. Currently, we are still up at around S48 so we aren’t quite on this map yet but I’v…

Jill Bowring (Anton’s wife and expedition education liaison officer) wrote the following message to her friends and family. When we spotted it at Operations HQ we convinced her to allow us to use it on here, albeit in a slightly censored version! It gives an alternative, and very funnty, take of life on board SA Agulhas. Hope you enjoy… “Good Evening All, After a day and half of flat calm…

We started on the second day out of Cape Town after Adrian McCallum, our resident scientist from Australia, set the hours from 9-10, 2-3pm and 7-8pm for the task, and encouraged as many as possible to join in. It turned out to be quite a social activity, especially since there were practically no birds to spot. It is well known that once you have left coastal waters with the terns, cormorants and…

Ian Prickett’s first blog, written from his cabin aboard SA Agulhas: We are finally underway and heading for The Ice. What a huge relief that we are actually onboard as at times this summer, it never looked as if we were going to make it! I have only been fully involved for the last year, but what an interesting and eye-opening time it has been. My position in this expedition originally began…