January 20, 2000
Day 90 Vernadsky and Lemaire Channel
We get up early this morning at about 6am. We are on the bridge watching the ship steer into the Lemair Channel, also called Kodak gap. It has snowed last night about an inch of snow covers the decks and makes them very slippery.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
The scenery is awesome towering snow-covered mountains on both sides of the barely one hundred meters wide channel filled with all sizes of icebergs. The captain has pulled a chair to the window at the center of the bridge. He studies the ice and mumbles Russian commands to his steersman that is standing three meters behind him.
Laure Dexter our expedition leader, diplomatically told the group not to be too loud on the bridge so the steersman can hear the captain. Captains do not like to shout on their bridge neither do they like to see other people sitting in the chair.
We weave our way through the channel as the snow lifts and a shimmer of sunlight accents the cliffs besides us. We anchor off the inlet on which the Ukranian research station, Vernadsky, is located. This station was formerly known as the British Faraday Station. This was the place the world was first alerted to the ozone problem at the South Pole.
We are on the first zodiac heading into the ice choked channel. Oleg, a Russian crew member is our driver. He steers the zodiac into the channel until the ice gets really dense. He grabs his radio and while circling back, radios the captain on the ship about the bad ice conditions (we think this is what he is reporting, he's speaking Russian). We can hear in his voice he doesn't like the situation.
Meanwhile Laurie and other staff members are attempting to reach Faraday from the other side but are turned back by impassable icefields. The message from the ship to Oleg is that this is the only way in. This stoic Russian, Oleg, scouts the ice and starts pushing the zodiac through it. It's quite the ride, we feel like explorers trying to reach this isolated outpost, and of course the only to visit the only souvenir store and bar on the continent. The ice gets very dense, but the study zodiacs can take a lot of abuse.
Finally, we round a corner and see the station, a cluster of metal clad buildings, lots of antennae and wiring. At a small dock two Ukrainians greet us and help us ashore. We are then guided to the main building that boasts a post office, bar and souvenir store. We think this is a way for making some hard currency, US dollars.
We mail a few cards that we don't expect to arrive until well after we reach home, if at all. They have to wait until the last ship of the season to pick up the crew and return all to Ukraine. Including the mail. We buy a T-shirt, pin and some nicely stamped postcards as souvenirs. Thy this time the station is getting pretty hectic as 100 tourists are being pried through the ice and led into the station for a crazed shopping spree. Good this we were early.
We sail on. We get to the Lamaine channel; we go for an afternoon cruise. We are in the zodiac driven by Laurie Dexter and Sonja, a seal expert.
We are in the first group. We take off among the ice flows looking for seals and penguins. One ice flow has 4 sea lions, another has a giant sleeping leopard seal. Laurie rams gently the front of the zodiac right to the nose of the sea lion. It raises its head and is eye to eye with Sonja. This so awesome to be so close to the water and ice flows with giant wall of ice surrounding us to the entrance to the Lemaire Channel.
The ship follows in the distance.
We return to the ship and continue on through the Lemaire Channel
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 1 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |