Antarctica: Slinking Through The Lemaire Channel.
"It's not looking too good."
This is what Shane, the expedition leader had said to some of us the fourth morning after getting out of the Drake Passage and into the peninsula. It was to be our last excursion day, before heading back into the Drake make our way to the Tierra del Fuego.
What he wasn't optimistic about, though, was our chances of getting through the Lemaire Channel.
The Lemaire Channel is a very narrow space ships need to navigate in order to get to Petermann Island. It's the fastest way to get there. But it can be very difficult, even in the Summer season - which we were. Icebergs rest in the channel, which is very still and lake-like. And often it is so frozen-over in spots that ships can't cut through.
This is what Shane, the expedition leader had said to some of us the fourth morning after getting out of the Drake Passage and into the peninsula. It was to be our last excursion day, before heading back into the Drake make our way to the Tierra del Fuego.
What he wasn't optimistic about, though, was our chances of getting through the Lemaire Channel.
The Lemaire Channel is a very narrow space ships need to navigate in order to get to Petermann Island. It's the fastest way to get there. But it can be very difficult, even in the Summer season - which we were. Icebergs rest in the channel, which is very still and lake-like. And often it is so frozen-over in spots that ships can't cut through.
According to a few expedition members, only one other expedition had even made it through that season.
As we slowly passed through, the overcast morning provided some striking contrast to the color on the glaciers and the icebergs.
And the stillness of the water was beautiful. It was very serene, despite how tense it can be to navigate a ship through what's ahead.
Again with this blue color... It mesmerized me every single time I saw it. Complete icebergs - the size of a small house - completely bathed in that electric blue color.
This is the narrowest part of the Lemaire Channel. You can see all of the icebergs that lay ahead on the horizon.
This shot of the three icebergs in front of me is one of my favorite photos of all that I took.
And the icicles hanging from the glacier... The blue in the crevasses... As we made our way through the water, it was so calm and quiet that any glacier ice that fell (and it happened a few times) made wonderfully monstrous splashes.
And of course... I captured a short video of us going through the channel. You can see around the 23-second mark exactly how narrow it becomes, and how much ice was in our way. The captain of the ship did an amazing job getting us through. We were very lucky to be able to navigate around all of the ice!
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