Antarctica 6: Polar Circle Crossing

The breakfast time was pretty late this morning at 07:45 as we still had to transfer to the Polar Circle which was estimated around 11:00. So we went to breakfast at 08:00 and sat with a group of people around our age, funny enough all of them from Europe in contrast to the group of US Americans 😁 Afterwards we had a lecture from the ice guy, a glacier scientist from Poland. He gave super interesting insights on the creation and properties of icebergs, also the record holders in terms of size and travel distance. While finishing his lecture we entered Crystal Sound which meant a rather sheltered area from the swell. Also there popped up a quite large amount and sizeable icebergs all around the ship. It was great to directly see the features we had just learned about 🏔️🧊

I spent some time outside watching the icebergs pass by our ship pretty close. The colours and structures they have are just stunning! But it was so cold that the battery of my camera died quickly 🪫We went back to the room quickly to get another layer against the horizontal snow and then we waited all for the crossing. They blew the horn of the ship three times and everyone started cheering 🇦🇶 To celebrate we got a hot chocolate with rum and several refills 😁 We stood at the front for a while and enjoyed the fresh air while the ship continued its way further South to Detaille Island where we had planned a landing/zodiac cruise. But unfortunately the conditions were once again not good enough to do any outdoor fun... So we needed to turn around soon after and did some ice pack ship cruising which was absolutely amazing!! These icebergs are magnificent to look at closely.
On one was sitting a cute little Adelie penguin 🐧Even though the ice cold wind was blowing in our faces and the ship started shaking we still spent most of our time outside.

For the evening it was planned to leave Crystal Sound again and head back into safer and especially chartered waters. As the conditions were pretty bad we started the return already by the afternoon cruising with the ship through stunning icebergs. At night we had the possibility to get drinks for the happy hour 50% off but after a quick round on the ship I decided I'd rather go to sleep and not puke 🤢 The sea was super rough and pushing us over 5 metres waves... I got a seasickness pill from a German guy and fell asleep almost immediately after hitting the bed.Leggi altro