Day 8 – Into the ice
Friday 09 January 2026 – written by Finn (with [edits] by Sonja)
This is day 8 on our floating home away from home, and this morning we all finally got to do the polar plunge! [Sonja tells us that this was the southernmost polar plunge ever done by a student team! at 69 degrees 14 minutes South]. There’s nothing else to say about that except “Brr” with water temperatures hovering around 1°C and air temperatures not much higher at 3°C. I’m proud to report that all of us gathered up the courage to jump into the ice filled waters, some of us (those with Scottish blood running through their veins) even managed to stay in so long that they were asked to get out by the expedition team. [Check out Instagram for videos of the team’s southernmost polar plunge!]
After this bone chilling experience, we warmed up in the hot tub on Deck 10 and then got ready to go on survey. Unfortunately, though, for most of the early observation time a thick fog layer limited the views as our ship sailed further south into George VI Sound. The plan was to find solid enough fast ice (sea ice fastened to land) to park the ship, lower the gangway and walk on the sea ice. [Sonja tells us that this used to be a popular activity during the few trips that ventured this far south in the past – see 2024 blog entry, but this year there is next to no sea ice left anywhere in the Marguerite Bay area, as also evidenced by our successful passage of the usually ice-filled Gullet a few days earlier, see previous blog post.]
As we cruised past beautifully sculpted icebergs deeper into George VI Sound we passed the only other cruise ship this far south, the icebreaker Le Commandant Charcot. So once again our ship (not an icebreaker!) became the southern-most passenger vessel in the world!!!
Some of the icebergs resembled ice castles and even ice islands – these were massive (island sized) chunks of glacial ice that had calved off the ice shelves streaming down from the Western Antarctic icecap which we could glimpse behind the high coastal mountains through gaps in the low-hanging clouds.
Then we spotted a thin white line of sea ice ahead. As we got closer lots of dark shapes emerged dotted along the edges of the sea ice expanse. These turned out to be many different groups of 2-3 crabeater seals lazing on the ice. [This type of sea ice is favourite habitat for crabeater seals, hence no ice = no seals, or rather sea ice = seals. The marine mammal observers had their hands full keeping up counting.] The sea ice wasn’t solid enough for us to set foot on but we enjoyed the views of the seals and this unique environment.
One black dot deep in the centre of the sea ice floe looked different. A lone emperor penguin!!! Our first emperor penguin sighting of the trip.
After admiring the adult emperor penguin for the better part of a half hour, we started to head back up North, with the feeling that the day had peaked and nothing new could surprise us. But we were in for another treat, ANOTHER EMPEROR PENGUIN! This time, it was on an iceberg and almost at the same height as the observation deck. The ship got close carefully allowing everyone on board to get some excellent photos and truly say that we have seen an emperor penguin.
[Feel free to leave a funny caption for the image in the comments.]
After this much excitement, dinner and the briefing for tomorrow, some of us retired to bed while others headed to Deck 10 for a nightcap, to relax and chat. They got lucky and got treated to another incredible spectacle: over the course of an hour or so we watched what felt like many dozens of whales(some estimated over 100!) blow, su feeding and fluking to dive back down for another mouthfull of krill. We could not have asked for a more miraculous pre-bedtime show to finish off an incredible day!
