Stuck!

The journey over the last few days has been exhilarating to say the least, we have had a mix of stormy open waters, some quite free flowing sea ice and some really thick ice.

A bit more wild life in the way of seals and penguins. what a brilliant sight when all of a sudden 5- 10 penguins pop up out of a clear patch of water onto the ice evidently spooked by the ships presence.

After the decision was taken to open the bar to all, we had a good crack and copious bottles of beer with the crew, to awake on the 17th to a motionless ship!! stuck since 3am in a big chunk of ice. We eventually freed up at about 10:00 following a lot of swinging of the crane, moving the ballast around and shifting the fuel between tanks. This meant that Will, who was on watch has had to provide free beers for the crew for tonight!!!!! The ship then doubled back and later yesterday found a shore lead and we were coasting gently alongside the continents ice shelf!!! what a sight.

For the rest of the evening yesterday (17th) we made slow progress as you can see from the ships tracking device. For the last few days we have not got any closer to our final destination at Halley (on the Brunt ice shelf) than about 230 nautical miles.

Today, 18th December was the ships captains date for arrival on the sweepstake!!! It was the captain apparently that has led us to a complete standstill at 04:00 this morning, it is now 11:30 here, 14:30 uk time and the ice is solid all around!!! totally solid. So while you guys are battling with cold temperatures and a few inches of snow, we have a blow of around 15-20 knots and are stuck fast in around 12 feet of sea ice that is drifting at about 0.4knots.

At about 07:00 the generators failed and there appears to be a problem with the ships main drive that the engineers are working all out to repair. The crane has managed to swing a container and move the ship slightly to a nice listing position, so making sitting straight an interesting task. It may be that if we are stuck in the same position for a while that the captain will give the order to put the gangway out to allow us to have a walk out on the ice!!!! that will be awesome!!!!!

So we are pretty much sitting ducks at the moment. There is an apparent clear stretch of water close to the continent that we were heading for that would have given us approximately 40 miles of fairly clear run but then into a thicker patch of ice than we currently find ourselves in. As i am typing we have managed to move backwards although the ice has frozen solid all around so should prove a challenge.

We have approximately 140 miles until we reach a notoriously bad stretch of water/ice known as the Stancon Wills ( I think thats how its spelt) named after the lady that provided a lot of the funding for Shackletons expedition, as she was a bit of a battle axe.

We have a total view of white all around,what an amazing sight!!!! I still struggle to find the words to do this experience the justice it deserves and still feel so humbled to be given this opportunity of a lifetime that very few individuals will ever get!!!

The adventure continues!!!!!!!!!!