nothing exciting to report to all you lovely people. We crossed the
60S mark, and are predicted to hit the sea-ice tomorrow. The real
excitement will then begins!
The fog still follows the Aurora thanks to the presence of a low
pressure system that seems intent on joining us on our voyage to
Commonwealth Bay. Fortunately, the seas have remained calm despite
said low; that's one positive at least! Rubbish visibility with rough
seas would not make for a happy Graham. The temperature continues to
drop, and remained at about -4.0C with wind chill for the majority of
the day.
We had a meeting today to update all the expeditioners on the plans
for the coming day as we near the continent. The original plan was to
head straight to Commonwealth Bay and drop people at Mawsons Hut for
centenary celebrations. The Antarctic weather has foiled that plan,
with blizzards set to prevail for the next few days. For that reason,
we are heading to the Mertz Glacier region again, the same location
as I went last year (if you remember, the Mertz Glacier tongue was
knocked off by a massive iceberg, allowing opportunities to sample in
previous unsampled locations). We're hoping to do a few CTD stations
there, and then make our way to Commonwealth Bay once the weather has
died down a bit. We were told that if there was enough open water
close to the Bay, they would try and get as many people to land as
possible. There's currently a fair amount of ice about I'm told, so
I'm hoping upon hope that this gets blown away in the next few days
so I can finally step foot on Antarctica.
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