Pléneau Island

At 16:45, the bridge announces our arrival at the entrance to the Lamaire Channel. I throw on a few layers and head out to the front viewing platform. Within seconds, I’m heading back for more layers. We’ve been advised that with the windchill factor it feels like -25°C outside, and I can confirm that it certainly feels like it. The entrance to the chanel is shrouded in mist and thick with pack ice. This ship is a PC-6 on the polar class scale, which means it is suitable for summer/autumn operation in medium first-year ice, so I admit I wasn’t too convinced that the captain would be taking us into the channel, but it seems that another ship has passed this way in the last few days, and the pack ice is only freshly knitted together. Standing on the bridge, eyes streaming from the bitter wind, I can honestly say I’ve never been colder in my life - even the polar dip from a few days ago was a mercifully brief affair. But as much as I want to retreat, I feel compelled to say and watch our transit through this mass of ice. The ship’s flat bow makes short work of the floating ice tablets, pushing them sideways or splitting them in two. Our passage is narrated by constant crunching and scraping sounds as we force our way through the tight channel, which at its narrowest is just 120 metres wide. It’s breathtakingly beautiful and unforgivingly cold. Eventually, as we work our way down the channel, the skies clear into a dazzling blue and we emerge into a beautiful frozen seascape. And still we press on south, through the pack ice. We’re now just 105 nautical miles from the Antarctic Circle.

We finally come to rest near the Vernadsky Research Base, having travelled another 12 nautical miles south. The expedition team has decided that we will go ashore on Petermann Island tomorrow, which lies some 5 miles to the north of our present position. The ship will therefore spend the night here in the Penola Strait. Very courteously, the captain has turned the boat so that my cabin is facing the sunset. And what a beautiful sunset it is.Read more