February 19 Inexpressible Island

As we travelled further south, the temperature gradually dropped lower and lower until we woke to ice on the inside of our cabin window, icicles hanging from the storm-door frames and snow drifts collected out on deck. Quite exciting! but the landscape was rather windswept and desolate. The whole scene was indeed almost inexpressible. One can only imagine what was in the minds, and what the wretched explorers encountered, when they arrived at and named this island 100 odd years ago. Not all the waters are charted here. It's a lonely place. The wind  was blowing hard reaching 80-90 Kph and the temperature was -12C. Yet it was sunny with a blue sky.

Everyone was up on the Bridge to see this desolate island where Scott’s north party who, having missed the ship because of advancing sea ice, were marooned and had to spend 'winter' in 1912 for 209 days in an ice cave they had dug in a huge snow drift.

Windows on the Bridge were icing over - inside and out!

Approaching Inexpressible Island we had a porridge sky.

The sea has many phases as it freezes. This stippling is part of it. Quite fascinating to watch.

Behind the island, Priestly Glacier with its terminal moraine ‘Hell’s Gate’, spreads out below the 2700m Prince Albert Range behind which the polar ice cap can be seen stretching inland.
We visited the island twice - once on our way south and again on our return journey north 4 days later. A group of people went ashore on our second visit, but the sea was pretty rough so I decided against it. Still I wished I had joined them as this island has some of the best examples of lichens in this entire region and also some amazing rocks as well as the odd penguin. I say ‘odd’ because the landing party came across an Emperor penguin on land and that’s most unusual. These penguins rarely go ashore living their entire life on sea ice, ice shelf or at sea.

Rough sea off Priestly glacier. We were unable to get closer as the uncharted waters were simply too risky.

A prominent hill on the island (closest to us) has been named Harrowfield Hill, for David Harrowfield, an Antarctic historian who we are very fortunate to have as a guide and lecturer on our journey

This is Dr David Harrowfield. For many decades he has worked in the Antarctic and has also been associated with the preservation of much of the remaining artifacts from the Heroic Age of Exploration - we were to visit some sites as part of this trip. It was eerie approaching this island listening to him describe how the explorers managed to survive here.
We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the sea getting whipped up and away creating rainbows. A beautiful overlay to the wild sea.