February 18 - our first steps on Antarctica

Around dinner time after a chilly day at sea (-6C) and choppy seas whipped up by 50 kph wind, we arrived at Terra Nova Bay where a few research bases are located - Italian, German, Korean. The mood on board was one of great excitement and, yes, a tiny bit of apprehension as we struggled into layers of warm clothes and waterproof gear ready to take our first steps on this mysterious continent, Antarctica. On top of our clothes went a thick hooded jacket and life vest and finally a backpack! Then, looking like astronauts clumping along in our huge gumboots, we very carefully picked our way down the gangway into the waiting zodiacs bouncing crazily on a quite choppy sea - I actually collapsed gracelessly rather than stepped into the zodiac (tripped over my way-too-big boots)!  The zodiacs pulled in to shore on breaking waves and we were disgorged on to a small slippery platform of ice - pretty unnerving having to quickly step onto the ice at the right cycle of the wave, ugh!
Unfortunately we didn’t get to visit any of the bases because, other than the Italian base, they were locked down for the winter. The Italian base had a skeleton staff left to pack up for the winter and weren’t able to show us around (add to that the b...... virus).  We landed near the unmanned German base, ‘Gondwana’ and were free to wander wherever we liked providing we kept a good 5m from any wildlife.
It was an strange other-worldly experience - desolate and arid, a moonscape highlighted here and there with chunks of ice, a few moulting penguins and some dozy seals. Lindsay and I were a bit awestruck and didn’t venture too far from shore.
It was a wild old trip back to the ship through a very choppy sea. We got to bed pretty late that night still buzzing but thoroughly exhausted and very glad to be lying down. What an immense and starkly beautiful place this is!

The Italian base from which they do biological research on flora of the area (lichen, mosses and algae) including sea flora and geothermal activity.

In the background the plateau rises 1800m
The intrepid explorer!

I had to include this one. This is the gorgeous Captain of our ship taking his turn at driving a zodiac - and going ashore. It was his first time captaining a ship in the Ross Sea; he was fantastic. Seemed to be in the bridge day and night. Most of the crew got to go ashore at one landing or another.
There were always 2 people to help you into and out of the zodiacs ship side.

A few Adelie penguins were standing like silent statues in the lee of these rocks - they were moulting and during that time they don’t move much or feed. They moult for ~3 weeks then go to sea to feed in preparation for winter breeding

The rocks are so strange. The land has been scored bare by glaciers so there’s no soil just rocks in various stages of breaking down. In some place the rocks were eroded into weird shapes by the wind.

In the foreground of this desolate landscape looking like a torpedo rock is a Weddell seal basking in the late evening sun. He/she was about 2m long.

That orange thing on the hill is the German station. That blue thing is Lindsay!

A couple of Weddell seal lazing on the ice

You may be able to see a white streak on the horizon that is part of the Drygalski Ice Tongue which stretches 80 km out over the sea on the south end of Terra Nova Bay where we had landed. The waves picked up a lot after this shot was taken and unfortunately that coincided with our return to ship. I think I might have collapsed back into the zodiac, it was horrendous stepping off the ice onto a bobbing rubber dingy.