Sea Ice Cruise

The plan for today was to land in Orne Harbor, participate in a science boat outing, and go on a zodiac cruise. Waking up we were greeted with a view of endless sea ice. It was communicated to us that our landing would be pushed back several hours due to the ice. I tell ya, this sea ice was something else, it was much bigger and much more plentiful than I had ever expected. Although we were traveling relatively slowly, I was impressed by how the ship navigated through it all. Sea ice tends to be more frequent early in the season, so we knew that this was a possibility going into the trip. The expectation of flexibility was also communicated early and often regarding excursions in Antarctica based on weather and ice conditions. It's pretty hard to predict the weather in highly habitated places, I guess it figures that doing it in the most remote area on Earth has to be magnitudes harder! Eventually, the landing was cancelled for the day, but we were able to go on about an hour long zodiac cruise in a nearby bay. It was a snowy day and visibility was limited, which made for a kind of ominous cruise (in a good way). We cruised through the silent waters taking in the views of sea ice and icebergs. Many of which were such a rich light blue, it almost seemed right out of a fantasy world. It was kind of a cool reminder of how far we were from the rest of civilization, which is simultaneously a awe-inspiring and somewhat anxiety inducing experience. Definitely something worth experiencing!