15th March – Penguin Paradise
Today was another day of surprisingly good weather! We started off on watch early this morning, before most of the ship was awake. We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife, but the brilliant sunrise over the…
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14th March – Past the Polar Circle
Today at sunrise Plancius slipped past the Polar Circle as an honor guard of minke whales dove elegantly alongside. We are now surrounded on all sides by the gently sunlit slopes of the “true” Antarctic, all impressive…
13th March – Wildlife in wild places
Today we had an early start as we travelled through the Lemaire Channel at first light. It was amazing to watch crabeater seals lounging on the ice floes and minke whales swimming in the channel as the sun rose over…
12th March – The Antarctic Continent and “Whalemina” Bay
What a fantastic view to wake up to: the spectacular mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula! The day started very early for us with the mammal and bird surveys before the main activities of the day. The ship anchored at…
11th March – Land!!! Deception Island
With our evermore tried and true sea-legs at the ready, we sailed out of the Drake’s Passage in the late morning and made our first sightings of land! Our first glimpse was of a dramatic, craggy island that rose from…
10th March – Calming wild waters
After a relatively harrowing first day in the Drake’s Passage, we spent yet another day at sea—luckily for us it was significantly calmer than the ten meter tall waves from yesterday. While still down a few members,…
9th March – Rock’n Roll in the Drake’s Passage
Well, the “thrills of tomorrow” (see Anna’s post) hit most of the team pretty hard….. the weather out in the Drake’s Passage was atrocious with over 10m high waves. So Plancius moved back and forth in the reasonably…
Departure Day – 8th March 2014
The day has finally arrived! After months of anticipation and building excitement we were finally ready to set off on our Antarctic adventure. The morning began with a delicious breakfast at our charming hotel in…
Heading South: St Andrews (56°N, 2°W) to Ushuaia (54°S, 68°W)
After months of anticipation and planning, the 2014 St Andrews Antarctic crew took off from Edinburgh on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 5th, to begin our journey southward. After a brief stopover in Paris followed…
Discovering the “Discovery” – a trip to Dundee
The St Andrews 2014 Antarctic team is getting into the expedition spirit – excitement is rising, count-down is on…. Less than one month before take-off from Scotland. Lynsey kicks off our St Andrews student expedition…