23/2/08  21:00

It’s been blowing Force 7/8 all day so the decision to stay put was justified.  The barometer is on the way up as this low passes over so we should be good to go first thing in the morning. Pelagic Australis has just arrived and I think they will go to Melchoir tomorrow as well and leave early Monday AM as we plan to.  They also want to get across The Drake before the next really nasty low arrives at the end of the week.

Speaking of lows, we are getting low on the long life bread that was baked for us in Ushuaia, so I decided to use the bread maker bought for this trip. I was pretty furious to find that the mixer/kneading attachment is not on the boat, so I kneaded it by hand and the result wasn’t too bad.

24/2/08 Noon

The wind carried on all night, but I was determined to leave this morning. The French knocked on our hull at 7:30 saying one of our stern lines was free.  It must have pulled the rock it was hooked around into the water. They helped reset it.  After everyone has some breakfast we extricated ourselves which only took about 40 minutes in all.  It was raining icy drops and the wind stayed around 20 knots.

During the night Endurance, a British Navel Expedition vessel arrived in Port Lockroy and we could see the helicopter on the aft deck as we left.  As we approached the Neumeyer Channel Gabriele (he and I were on Watch) complained to me that he could hear a noise and was convinced it was one of the heaters and it was getting louder.  As I started to go below to investigate, the Naval helicopter appeared from astern and flew over a glacier on our Starboard side.  A few minutes later he was back and made radio contact.  He told us that conditions were improving ahead and the channel was pretty clear of ice.  He then asked permission to drop down to our level to take some photographs of us.  I of course agreed and he has promised to e-mail us the shots this afternoon when he gets back to base.  I hope he does, but I won’t be able to download them until Ushuaia.  When the chopper left, Gabriele could no longer hear the “heater” noise.

As we were motoring about 100 meters from a huge iceberg, it calved, and dropped a huge chunk of ice into the water.  Very spectacular.  I had to alter course as it sent quite a large shock wave towards us.  We’ve since seen several large humpbacks and seals.  The wind has moderated, the icy rain has all but stopped and the sun has made a couple of pathetic attempts to cut through the cloud, but we’ve given up expecting to see any sun. I don’t suppose we’ve seen more than 12 to 14 total hours of sun light during the 2 weeks we’ve been down hear.  I’ve worn my new bi-focal sunglasses from Ushuaia on day only in Enterprise.While typing this, it has suddenly gone very dark.  And wet.

14:00

Stop Press.  Sun comes out.

14:10

Start Press.  Sun disappears.

15:30

We are anchored in the Melchoir Islands.  It is cold and grey but very beautiful.  It would be a wonderful place to explore if there were even a touch of sunlight. The recommended spot is occupied by another yacht but as we are only going to be here a few hours I prefer to be at anchor. We are in a little bay and have slowly circled with the boat to be sure we have enough swinging room before dropping the tandem anchors with 60 meters of chain.

Today’s pictures show the grey views of today.  Plus Nik got a shot of the berg calving.  A big piece like the ear sticking up at the top has just fallen into the water and the splash wave is forming.

The last two are new anchorage views.