To Gerlache Strait

It is calm weather and we are heading to the Gerlache strait and Nansen Island in the south. Yesterday we had yet another day of bad weather. When we woke up the winds were too strong to go on shore in the Zodiak in a secure manner.
Moreover, there was almost no visibility because of heavy snowdrift and fog, making it impossible to take photographs and to map with the total station.

Patiently we spent most of the day waiting for the gale to stop and towards the late afternoon the conditions improved. Our team went on shore and quickly finished the most crucial documentation tasks that remained from the previous day. When we left Deception Island later in the night, we could conclude that although we lost 2/3 of our time at the site because of bad weather, we still managed to get almost all of the data we wanted.

The Gerlache Strait area offers breathtaking scenery, a concentrate of the common image of the Antarctic - glaciated islands and sharp peaks rising from deep blue waters full of marine wildlife. Earlier in the 20th century, this area was the scene of an intensive whale hunt on an industrial scale based on floating factory ships. These ships anchored in sheltered bays in the area, where their crews flensed the whales alongside the ships. Crucial for processing the whales into oil was the availability of nearby glaciers or rivers. These supplied freshwater, which the whaling companies transported to the floating factories in water barges.

Nansen Island was one of the islands the factory ships used and we expect to find the remains of their bases there - sheltered beaches with water barges, anchorage points, wooden barrels and other remains of their activities. And even though the whaling industry almost depleted the whale stocks in the Antarctic, we are also hoping to get a close encounter with these impressive animals as we pass through De Gerlache Strait this morning.

2010-03-22 Dag Avango, Ulf Gustafsson & Gustav Rossnes

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