Tuesday 14 March 2006
Iceberg Graveyard
We arrived at Signy early on Sunday morning, after picking our way through a field of icebergs in the vicinity of Coronation Island. Because the water is shallow near the islands passing icebergs regularly get grounded, resulting in a large number of spectacular bergs forming a kind of graveyard around the islands.
A variety of grounded icebergs around Coronation Island. Collisions and the weather sculpt them into all kinds of different shapes.
The glorious weather from South Georgia and Bird Island appeared to be behind us, with the islands shrouded in thick grey fog for most of our stay. Signy is a summer only base, so the reason for our visit was to close it for the winter and pick up the remaining passengers. By the time we arrived most of the preparations had already been made, so it only took half a day to turn off the generators, collect the outgoing cargo and waste and lock everything down until next spring. With the focus on getting the job done, there wasn't enough time for recreational excursions so I didn't manage to get any photos of the base this time around.
With all the work done and still some time in hand the captain decided to sail around Coronation Island to an old BAS hut at Cape Geddes on Laurie Island. The hut has been abandoned since 1947, but is scheduled for removal next year as part of a larger operation to clean up BAS's abandoned sites. The plan was to recce the site and find a safe place to moor up the Shackleton's small landing craft.
As we sailed towards it the sun briefly came out and I was able to take some decent pictures.
A huge iceberg, several times higher than the ship.
A rounded berg with blue ice features running through it. The small black dots are penguins that somehow managed to scale the smooth, steep sides.
An odd shaped bergy bit floating past the ship. Bergy bits are small remnants of icebergs that have broken off larger bergs during collisions.
Unfortunately the thick fog had returned by the time we arrived, making it impossible to navigate through the icebergs to the coast. After hanging around overnight hoping for an improvement that never materialised the visit was postponed until next year. The ship is now sailing north, heading towards our final destination - the Falkland Islands.
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