The outer door to deck 5 is banging every few minutes – it’s 1:30am, and the sky is incredibly light.  People are rushing outside to capture the midnight sun.  I’m enjoying sleep, but still wake at 5:00am.  From the Bridge we see penguins running in tight circles as the KK bears down upon their ice floe.  What they thought was a safe and quiet place is now under significant threat.

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We’ve been reasonably free of sea-ice through the bright night, and the seas are fairly calm.  Up on the Bridge at 7:00am, there are few people around.  We’ve moved our clocks back one hour over the last few nights, and with another sea day, many are enjoying a sleep in. Birds are flying around the ship, and seals are lying out on the ice-floes.  We change course to avoid large tabular icebergs – otherwise everything is pretty much the same as yesterday, although a little colder – air temp is now -2oC. 

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I’m on the Bridge at 7am.  It’s very calm as we continue to push through the broken sea ice, but the visibility is poor.  The Bridge navigation computer has the ETA to Peter 1 at around 10am, assuming our course and speed remain as is.  After breakfast, I rug up and head out to the bow.  It’s really not too cold, although we do have some snow blowing across the ship.  

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I’m on the Bridge early as we come into the southern part of Marguerite Bay, near Stonington Island. This is my 2nd landing here, but because of the snow cover, quite different to the last. This time we’re able to go inside the building used by the British Antarctic expeditions in the last century.

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The swells have reduced significantly now that we’re closer to land, and sleeping was certainly more comfortable last night.  It looks like we’ll be landing at Neko this evening.  We have the mandatory Zodiac briefing and learn about the “Seals of Antarctica” and “Sealing in the 1800’s.”  While we’re having dinner, the Captain finds a suitable place to anchor, and it’s great to know that our first landing will be on the continent rather than an island.

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It’s a quiet day and a good opportunity to get to know my way around the ship before we get into rough seas. This is a big ship, and very different to others I've been on. It feels far more like a working ship than one set up to take passengers. But then it has been built as a working icebreaker, and that’s what we are on her to do – break ice!

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