Antarctica East 2026

Jan 21: Navigating through the Ross Sea ice

Sammy, the food has been amazing and even though rich, only very small portions are served. Sally, that was my first taste of escargots and I wouldn’t leave home for them! And Anne, here is evidence of me in the salt therapy room!

Ok, now if you’ve been paying attention you would remember that 9 days ago we sailed past a massive iceberg, called Iceberg B-22A, which covered an area of around 3000 sq kms, or 2/3 of the size of kangaroo island.

Well, to get out of the Ross Sea, we have to again sail past this iceberg. So we are sailing north and are now at 71 deg S (almost out of the Antarctic circle).

So we are again seeing some lovely icebergs and one of the more talented photographers on board shared these with me (i think Rada wanted to see more icebergs!)

We took a zodiac ride to get a closer look at B-22A, and as part of the journey we went close to another zodiac, where we were each served a glass of champagne, to celebrate leaving Antarctica! The captain joined us!

Our zodiac driver thought it would be fun to drive the zodiac across the hundreds of pieces of ice on the sea….all I could think about was: what if the ice punctured the zodiac?! Great view of ship from our ice ridden location….

Tonight we will be crossing the Antarctic circle at 66 deg S, leaving behind 24 hour sunlight and saying good bye to Antarctica.

Forgot to mention the school of humpback whales which amused us this morning

And the snow petrels…