Wearing ship at the pack ice edge.

It is just about 8:00 AM. A morning that brought better weather and improved visibility, the fog has dissipated. A white line stretches before the ship. A clear strip appears on the radar. As we get closer, a distinct ice edge surrounding here and there some large icebergs becomes more visible. There is no way the ship can sail into that. Checking the ice charts, we can see just south of us the pack reaches out all over the Weddell Sea.

There’s no other option than to wear ship and retrace part of our steps. 30, 40, gusts of 50kn from the northwest backing to more west don’t allow for much westing. The high concentration of ice doesn’t let us steer to the southwest. The rough seas break over the lee side of the ship, now heeling to starboard as we head northwards. Hang on… wasn’t this the very same iceberg we saw earlier? Of course, it is. By the end of the day, and after sailing 123nm, we are just 24nm more to the west than yesterday at 8 o’clock.

The weather forecast shows, to the dismay of many aboard, that for the next couple of days we will be wearing ship and steering north-south, south-north several times. No big changes in the prevailing westerlies.

As usual, the leg of the yearly trip planned from South Georgia to Antarctica is proving to be a good challenge. For the distance to sail, always more than the usual number of days for the distance to cover is added to deal with this area.