Yesterday afternoon we left the Weddell Sea, on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, and headed toward Elephant Island. During the early morning hours we encountered a dense mass of pack ice. Never mind that our latest ice chart showed no such thing. We were most definitely in the ice, stretching off to the horizon. Our ship slowed as the officer of the watch carefully guided the Caledonian Star through open leads between floating plates of ice. We have marveled over the size, shapes and colors of icebergs, pieces of freshwater ice that have descended with the glaciers that push down off the Antarctic continent. Now we are experiencing the pack ice, frozen seawater that forms each winter around Antarctica, doubling the size of the continent. During the summer it breaks into floating pieces and drifts with the wind. Its upper surface provides a platform for resting crabeater seals and Adelie penguins; its lower surface is the larval habitat for krill, the keystone species of the Antarctic marine ecosystem.
Our progress slowed, the "flexible itinerary" came to the fore. We turned westward, away from our destination, to skirt the ice mass and approach Elephant Island from the north. A late afternoon landing on Penguin Island provided an opportunity to stretch our legs as we walked among chinstrap penguins, nesting southern giant petrels with their huge downy chicks, and male Antarctic fur seals, newly arrived from their breeding colonies on South Georgia Island.
Today's temperatures: low -3 C (27 F); high +1 C (34 F).
