Last night it was distinctly warmer and out on deck this morning and the further north we go the air temperature keep rising. The nights are getting darker and we are now getting proper sunsets again.
On our way down to Antarctica we navigated through a large reach of thick pack ice which this time round was mainly melted and was almost non existent. We passed through the last icebergs and the southerly turned to a northerly where waves started going in both directions but we still made great time.
There was a lecture on the history of the Ross Sea all about the development of landing planes, ships, whaling and the bases in Antarctica. Great way to put things in prespective and add that final history to where we have been the last 2 weeks.
In Feb 1956 Mcmurdo Base was built, in 1957 Scott Base was built, in Nov 1956 The US South pole base was built. Sir Edmund Hillary also came down here in lay depots for a guy called Fuchs who wanted to undertake Shackeltons journey crossing the entire Antarctic continent.
It is interesting when these early explorers claimed their journeys to be scientific expeditions. There was not a lot of science done. The use of science is almost used as a front/or excuse to be somewhere doing something e.g. Mcmurdo Station has 50% of the people as base staff/50% science, then the Japanese use the term scientific whaling when really they just want the whale meat to eat, even just the fact that the US set up base at the south pole with the only real science that can be undertaken down there being ice cores, its almost like an ego statement and claiming territory so everyone can take a cut if oil drilling ever occurs down here.
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