Day 47

  Bovatoya

What a difference a day makes, on deck this morning with full winter boots, padded boiler suit, thermals, wooly hat and a couple of pairs of gloves.

Sea temp is -1.1°C

Air temp -1.5°C

Barometer reads 962mb

Wind speed is F9

Swell height is 8m

We passed Bovatoya, lots of fur seals surrounding the ship. Saw my first Iceberg and glacier.

The ship is now back on GMT

By this evening, the wind and sea have both calmed. Icebergs are becoming more frequent, by the morning we will be in the pack and finally cutting through ice.

On the ship there are three large spotlights to try to illuminate the area in front of the ship to make it easier to navigate through the ice. Most large icebergs can be easily detected by radar although some that have either capsized or have the top at a 45° angle, deflect the radar waves away, making them difficult to detect.

There are many different classification of iceberg depending on size and what kind of ice it is, there are megabergs which are over  1km long, growlers which are the size of a van, blue ice, clear ice and pack ice.