RWSE Day 8: Wrapping Up

EL Sara started the daily recap with an aerial image of Saunders Island and enjoined us to get up around 4:00a tomorrow to see the island at sunrise … which will be around 4:30a. Why make the effort? Because it would be worth the loss of sleep to see the red glow in the sky from the lava lake within Mt Michael.

So, what else will we be doing tomorrow? Well, we’ll be heading to the southernmost islands of this archipelago. EL Sara is hoping to put zodiacs in the water there. If the weather charts she showed us are to be believed, conditions won’t necessarily be calm. However, by anchoring in the Douglas Strait between the two islands, there just might be enough protection from the elements. Fingers crossed.

Matilda then talked briefly about the “Journey of Icebergs.”

There have been a lot of questions about a gigantic iceberg named A23a, which has been in the news a lot recently. In fact, some of the expeditions in the Falklands-South Georgia-Peninsula area, have sighted this berg, which is 40 NM long x 32 NM wide (46x37 miles). We’re nowhere near the berg, so we won’t be seeing it. (Worry not … we will see plenty of other bergs … of all sizes.)

NASA’s Earth Observatory website describes the movement of icebergs … “When icebergs break from an ice shelf or large glacier front, they ride the ocean’s currents, spin in its eddies, shift with the tides, and are blown by the wind. Occasionally the icy drifters become stuck, grounded on a shallow part of the seafloor or trapped in a rotating mass of ocean water.” What bergs do is also impacted by what part of the continent they calve off.

Matilda used iceberg A68a as an example in her briefing because, like A23a, it was believed to be destined to crash into South Georgia Island. Luckily, A68a disintegrated before that could happen. There is no indication that A23a will be falling apart any time soon, however, and it is still on a collision course with SGI.

And then it was time for dinner.

By the way, one might think that we are disappointed with our South Sandwich Island experience thus far. We aren’t. Sure, it would have been nice to see the islands against a backdrop of sunny blue skies. Sure, it would have been nice to do some kind of an off-ship operation. But flexibility in the face of adversity is something one must take to heart on an expedition of this nature. We saw more of South Sandwich today than we ever expected to see.

We’ll see what our second day in the South Sandwich Islands brings!Read more