Being on an expedition means there is a plan, an outline of goals to achieve and the means to accomplish them. Go through Lemaire Channel; present a lecture on heroic explorers; land at a Gentoo penguin colony; all on the slate for today. It also means there is flexibility, the ability to be spontaneous as well as reacting to whatever situation you’re in. Instead of standing on the bridge and wishing we were out in the boats and getting a closer look, all it takes is an impulsive suggestion met with exuberance and anything can happen. And as disheartening as it is to the assistant expedition leader, who has painstakingly edited and delivered the daily program, it’s somewhat exciting when almost first thing in the morning everything changes. So during breakfast when National Geographic Orion explores a protected fjord and the wind has not yet woken it is time to wolf down that delicious omelet and get into the Zodiacs for a cruise around Flander’s Bay.
While the sea is mirror calm, large snowflakes waft gently onto the surface, alighting so gently that no ripples disturb the serenity of the moment. When these waters are graced with such tranquility you can see the infant stages of sea ice beginning to form. Almost oily looking slush starts to form what is called “grease ice” as the salt water begins to separate and freeze. Gradually, before our very eyes, the grease ice begins to coalesce and form small plate-sized discs that the slightest wave would break apart but in this windless period are allowed to proliferate and merge with other plates, or “pancakes”. This is how the massive sheets of ice form that will double the size of the Antarctic continent in the months to come, expanding out from every direction, attaching to land and becoming “fast”. With no threat of becoming beset our Zodiacs explore this peaceful winterscape, engines purring softly through the flows. Crabeater seals lounge on bergs and while Antarctic terns elegantly flit about with enviable grace. And while eventually it is time to leave this secluded stop and get back to the plan, it is perhaps the knowledge that it is purposely a plan to deviate from that makes this feel like an expedition.
