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Sunday 5 July 2009

Winter wonderland

Winter wonderland

At the beginning of 1984 — more than 23 years ago — I was lucky enough to be invited by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to join its research and supply vessel, the John Biscoe, on a six-week trip to Antarctica.

At the beginning of 1984 — more than 23 years ago — I was lucky enough to be invited by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to join its research and supply vessel, the John Biscoe, on a six-week trip to Antarctica. On that occasion, we left Punta Arenas in Tierra del Fuego, Chile’s most southerly port, and crossed the dreaded Drake Passage below Cape Horn, to visit BAS bases on the Antarctic Peninsula, as well as the South Orkney Islands, South Georgia and the Falklands.

Looking back, what sticks in my memory is the vast array of Antarctic wildlife that I saw on that trip. To give just one example: as the John Biscoe left South Georgia on the last leg of our voyage (we were heading for Rio de Janeiro), we passed tiny Willis Island, home to no fewer than six million penguins. The sound and sight of a penguin rookery on that scale has to be seen to be believed.

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