Report 8 February - Team B on board Pelagic at Paradise Bay

Mon 8th Feb 20.35 A special hello to Thringstone County Primary School, from one of your school governors, Adrian, and the Mission Antarctica team on board Pelagic. Adrian is looking forward to meeting you all on his return and telling you about the expedition.

We have had some requests for information about penguins. Try Peter and Barbara Barham's Penguin pages There is no site with more detail! Otherwise visit pages 1 and 2 of a question and answer session on penguins from an earlier Pelagic voyage when the pupils of Desert Cove School in Texas asked Skip Novak about penguins.

Such a perfect day. We've come to Antarctica proper at last and it's all we imagined and more. Luck was on our side as the sun shone all day. We basked in temperatures of 8 degrees, considerably more than parts of scotland, we understand. Determined to see at least one Antarctic sunrise, I rose with the dawn chorus of our neighbours, a group of Arctic terns who inhabit the whalers shipwreck we are moored to. I watched as the light slowly enhanced the scene of towering snowy mountains and craggy, timeless glaciers. We had anchored strategically last night near to a glacial waterfall to renew our fresh water supplies - I can't wait to taste water that is perhaps thousands of years old. Taking advantage of the lovely day and plentiful fresh water, we quickly did some laundry. perhaps mundane, however, it certainly added to the perfection.

Setting off, we navigated the Gerlaiche Straits, in awe of the spectacular scenery, finding it hard to take in so much natural beauty. Again, we are lucky with wildlife and have two pods of whales crossing our path. We came across hundreds of icebergs individually sculpted, our imaginations ran wild intrepreting the formations. The deep blue colour of the icebergs continue to fascinate us, a result of immense pressure on the layers of ice, restricting the red end of the colour spectrum. At Cuverville, a bay within the straits sounding more like a metropolis than an idyllic stopping point, we see four seals basking on an iceberg - 3 crab eaters and one weddell seal. They are not so pleased to see us and fairly quickly slip into the water where they feel more secure.

Without this wonderful distraction we carry out our planned work. Specifically, noting and photographing change monitoring sites for future expeditions to observe and compare for signs of global warming.

Paradise Bay

We are now in Paradise Bay - it is paradise. Huge, 9000ft mountains with massive cascading glaciers either side and there is not a breath of wind. Adrian has just arrived back from a photographic run with eric. They sat drifting amongst the icebergs for 2 hours in total silence with the most breathtaking view one could witness anywhere in the world. He remembers a lecture referring to mountain people and valley people. It's only now he understands that he is wholeheartedly a mountain person. One can't imagine how today could be bettered but weather permitting we head for our furthest point south, Vernadsky, the ex-british base, Faraday, now run by the Ukrainians, we wait in anticipation.....

Heather Prodger