Heading back

Day 10
Well today we were greeted by a wall of rock just outside our cabin when I drew the curtains.   Yes, we were sailing into Deception Island, the caldera of an active volcano, which last erupted in 1969.  

We sailed in and around and exited within 90 minutes and then cruised along the eastern side of the island, which plays host to large colonies of chinstrap penguins & seals.  We were a long way offshore, so the birds just looked like little white specks.   I am certain however that we saw some Orca by the shore, probably having breakfast on the aforementioned. 

We are now off to "Iceberg Alley", between the top of the Antarctic Peninsula & Bransfield Island, where the icebergs escape into the Altantic.  On our way we saw in the distance a very big iceberg (A57A), 11 km long & 5 km wide!  The day again is overcast but the temperature is just 2°.  

We reached the end of the "alley", and spun around to give everyone a good view of all the 'bergs congregated together, waiting wind & current before heading north.  It was a relatively short stay as the wind picked up (4.00pm) and the Captain is keen to get out to sea before any of the *big* ones start moving towards us. So we are now heading to our final Antarctic destination - Elephant Island.

2 photos looking down Iceberg Alley 

Just another iceberg!

We went to dinner early as we planned to get to the 8.15pm show.  Just as we entered the dining room, we sailed past the tallest iceberg to date.  This one was massive and was as tall as the ship - given that 90% is under water, it was massive.  

Dinner was good, although our waiter was run off his feet.  It seems that they don't have enough staff at peak times to deal with all the diners.  The good news however is that "code orange" or whatever is over as we had salt & pepper shakers back on the table along with the breads basket. 

Day 11
Elephant Island lies some 150 miles north of the Antarctic Peninsula and is "famous" for being the refuge for the explorer Ernest Shackleton & his men, who had to endure 4 winter months awaiting rescue.  We had been promised a warmer sunny day, but when we woke it was bleak, windy & cold.  It was so windy from our starboard quarter that the ship was listing quite a bit, so they had to pump water to the starboard side to level us.  We are "enjoying" -4 degrees currently, so we'll wait and see what the rest of day holds.

We got a window table at the back of the ship and got some great views while having breakfast - I've managed to get them sorted with my poached eggs on english muffin with smoked salmon - yum!  The dining room staff are superb, where everyone knows your name!  

After breakfast we donned our woolies and took our mile walk around deck 10.  It was cold.  So cold that the swimming pool had steam coming off it.  Surprisingly we were the only ones walking - some bods made a brief appearance, took a quick photo & had gone by the time we came around again. 

We warmed ourselves up with coffee and by then we had Elephant Island off our port side, so  redonned our winter gear and back up to deck 10, where it was snowing.  This time enough snow to settle and accumulate on the deck.   The wind was back up to 40 kts and net temperature was around -6°.  Still we got some photos, including where Shackleton and his men sheltered awaiting rescue.  

Shackleton's hot is under the peaked hill in the centre

We have now turned around and are heading NE in search of the largest iceberg in these waters.  As we cruised along, a medium sized iceberg floated past, close to our cabin and although I have thousands (well hundreds anyway) of iceberg photos, I took some more and found that there was a small penguin colony on board.

Spot the penguins (hint, mainly right hand side)

Wow.  All I can say is wow.  We cruised within a mile or so of B09F, the largest flat iceberg we've come across.  This monster is 32km long, 13 km wide and has a height above water of 33m.  Now as only roughly 10% of an iceberg is visible, the Captain reckoned that the volume of this iceberg is roughly 182 billion m3.  If you think that is big, this iceberg is the 6th calving off B09 which broke off the Ross Iceshelf in 1987 - over 30 years ago.  B09 was 154 kms x 35 kms or 5,400 km2!!!

Well, after that I am icebergged out and we are now headed in a northwesterly direction towards the Falkland Islands, recrossing Drake Passage.  Tomorrow is a sea day and Captain has warned us that seas could get a bit rough.  Accordingly he has put the throttle down to try to outrun the worst of the weather.  Certainly the seas have become choppy but this has attracted lots of birdlife, although no albatrosses so far.