A voyage to the Ross Sea, Antarctica part 7
Cape Evans, Scott’s hut, and emperor penguins on the fast ice.
I wake up to the sight of Mt. Erebus outside my window. I slept very little. We are at 77°37.96' S, 166°24.27' E. Outside, the wind blows at 20 knots.
I chat with Emma at breakfast. She’s working on the ship until they reach Japan and then she’ll have a month off. She tells me that working on the ship is easier than working France. There’s three meal services a day with breaks in between and the expedition crew does their best to find space for them on excursions.
At the front desk I meet Clara, from Maritius. Natasha, the night receptionist is also from Mauritius. They know each other from another boat. In all, there are about ten employees from Mauritius in the company.
She tells me she’s filling in for a receptionist that just resigned. She’s here for this one cruise and then headed home. I check the signup sheets and sign Natalie and I up for an engine tour the next day, knowing she’s too busy to keep track of the extra activities on board. I’ve told her she can call me Giacamo, her private cruise director.
I can see Scott’s Hut from the bow of the ship. From my room I watch the guides set up the landing site, ferrying equipment and emergency supplies to the shore before starting with the first set of guests, zodiacs shuttling to and fro.
When we’re called we shuffle to the marina. Guiliana calls out the groups and June scans our cards to check us out of the boat. The seas are calm, the journey to the landing quick.
Lachie is our guide for the hut. It sits in an Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA), and we’re only allowed 45 minutes in the area per group. We’re allowed about ten minutes in the hut itself.
Lachie leads us towards the hut, crossing the ASPA markers. Our allotted time has begun.
Built in 1911 by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910–1913 (aka the Terra Nova Expedition), Scott’s Hut served as the base of operations for his fatal attempt to be the first person to reach the South Pole. He arrived at the pole 34 days after Roald Amundsen had claimed the title. He died on the return journey, trapped by a blizzard only 20.1 km from One Ton Depot and resupplies.
For nine days they huddled in their tent, writing farewell letters as the storm raged, their supplies dwindling. On 29 March, Scott wrote the final entry in his diary: “Last entry. For God's sake look after our people.” All five of Scott’s party that had attained the pole perished.
The hut was also used by Shackleton’s Ross Sea party, which was responsible for laying depots for Shackleton to use on his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the last of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. On that expedition, Shackleton’s ship. the Endurance, was trapped in pack ice in the Weddel Sea only a day’s sail from land and later sank. The story of its rediscovery is the subject of Natalie’s documentary Endurance.
In the Ross Sea, the party was stranded at the hut when the Aurora broke adrift and floated north with the ice. The anchor still lays half-buried on the beach.
At the door of the hut our boots are scrubbed clean as we wait for the group before us to depart. From the door way I can smell the fresh scent of wood. It’s as if the hut were erected only yesterday.
Lachie sets a timer on his watch. Tracking our time already? No, he says. He wants to make sure that we’re not ushered out early.
It’s incredible. It’s incredible to think of the people who weathered dark winters in the confines of the hut. It’s incredible to see all the artifacts so carefully preserved and replaced. It’s incredible to feel the presence of the men who called this place home, however briefly. And it’s incredible to consider those who died on the continent in the name of Antarctic exploration.
As we explore the hut it feels as though the original inhabitants have just stepped outside to let us have a look. I imagine their ghosts watching us through the windows as we gaze upon the lives they left behind.
Too soon our time is up. Guides call to Lachie to let him know. I was the first to enter and am the last to leave. As I step outside the hut I realize that I haven’t left time to see the stables. Another passenger is exiting slowly and I take an opportunity to at least get a glimpse, staring down the dark expanse that leads to the stalls before exiting myself.
Outside we’re offered the choice of climbing the nearby hill for the views or to head back. A cross erected in memory of three members of Shackleton’s Ross Sea party that perished near here adorns the hill. We all decide to climb.
As we begin we pass a mound of bones. None of the gudes have ever seen it as it’s usually covered in snow. The melt this year has revealed much more than usual, and there’s rampant speculation about what they might be.
Later, we’ll learn that it’s mutton, stored in an ice cave that had been left by Scott’s Terra Nova party. Covered by ice and snow, it lay undiscovered by the starving Ross Sea party unaware of how close the cache lay. The site had only become uncovered a few seasons ago.
Atop Wind Vane Hill we reach the cross. A planned inscription was never carried out but a plaque sits below the cross commemorating the following members of the Ross Sea party: Reverend Spencer Smith, who died from scurvy on the journey back from depot laying; and Captain Aeneas Mackintosh and Victor George Hayward who disappeared in an attempt to reach Cape Evans on the return journey, crossing the thin sea ice before it had been set.
Coming back down the hill I take the last few minutes of our alloted time to take a few more photos of the hut and the stores that have been strewn around it. I walk towards the shore and gaze upon the anchor of the Aurora.
A wisp of smoke escapes from the crater of Mt. Erebus.
Outside of the ASPA a walking trail has been marked to the north, following the shore to where the rocks have surrendered to snow. Seals sun themselves along the path, the ship floating behind them. At the end of the marked path I find Sabrina, watching over passengers as they arrive.
Walking back to the landing site I turn inland where another trail has been marked. This leads to a small inland lake. A few birds sit on the far shore.
Back at the landing site I run into Patricia. She’s been on land since 10:30 in the morning. A Weddel sea lays nearby and she’s spent a large portion of the morning watching it, recording it as it sings.
Natalie appears, having just visited Scott’s Hut and the ASPA, and she heads north along the marked path. Patricia and I decide to follow,
We decide to walk the path again to the north, to check out the seals and admire once again the landscape at the end of the walk.
A helicopter lifts off from the beach. We had seen and heard it arrive on landing, an incongruous sound to our surroundings. Patricia had a chance to talk to the pilot; he had flown members of Antarctic Heritage Trust on one of their visits to restore the huts.
By the time we return to the landing site Patricia is ready to head back. The seal remains where it was, unpreturbed by the passengers who continue to arrive in small waves, walking past it as they explore the island.
Natalie joins us on our zodiac back to the ship and we make plans to meet again at the pool. It’s a relatively warm day, and if there ever was an opportunity to use the pool, today seems like it would be it.
The water is warm, though cold currents run through the pool. The water is drawn from the ocean and a small krill has made it past the filters. Natalie finds it floating in the pool and we gather around to check it out.
We don’t stay long, enough to have enjoyed the experience (our concession to a polar plunge) before heading back to our cabins to shower and change for lunch.
In the evening we cruise towards McMurdo station. In the past, cruises would alight and be welcome to visit, but after Covid all those visits have stopped. We have to content ourselves with seeing it from afar.
The station is an assemblage of buildings and containers looking very much like a company town from back in the day. We can see people walking the streets, a bus that stops and picks them up. A coworker has a friend working at the station and I wave in his direction. Later, I’ll her I said hi.
We continue sailling down and around Cape Evans to visit Scott Base, New Zealand’s only research station in Antarctica. The dining room empties as people head to the outside decks to get a look. It’s a much more aesthetic base, the buildings uniformly painted a bright green that stands in juxtaposition to the black slopes upon which it sits, and the white mountains that form its backdrop.
We reach our furthest south position and as we head back around we sail along the fast ice, a beautiful unbroken expanse that reaches towards the moutain peaks. Someone spots two emporer penguins near the water, a few Adélie penguins in their midst. A seal or sea leopard rests not far off.
I’m excited to see them, never having expected it. We watch as the smaller penguins waddle off towards the resting form and beyond. The emporer penguins hang out amongst themselves. It’s something out of a nature documentary and I could sit and watch them all day.
Unfortunately, that’s not the plan. After cruising close to the shelf, we turn and head towards Cape Royds where we’re hoping to visit Shackleton’s hut. By now Natalie, Patricia, and I are each at least seven glasses of champagne in. It feels decadent and it feels like a celebration for having traveled this far and for having seen so much. And the trip is not yet half over. There’s much yet to do. 🇦🇶
— 3 February 2025
