South African icebreaker Agulhas II, 05.24 hours GMT. Ice Pilot Freddie Ligthelm over ship’s intercom: “Good Morning from the Bridge. This is to say we have reached the Endurance sinking position. Lekker Lekker Lekker [Afrikaans for “Nice, Nice, Nice”]”
Following on from Penguin News’ interview last week with Islander Mensun Bound, who was involved in the search for the Argentine submarine Ara San Juan, Mr Bound spoke of his current project, the search for Shackleton’s ship Endurance.
An Antarctic scientific expedition aiming to understand the secrets of a giant iceberg will also attempt to locate Ernest Shackleton’s stricken Endurance in the Weddell Sea, according to reports in The Guardian.
Nasa has released a striking photo of a rectangular iceberg floating in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica. The US space agency said the object's sharp angles and flat surface suggested it had recently broken away from an ice shelf. The edges are still pointed, and have not yet been worn down by the ocean waves.
A thriving “hotspot” of 1.5 million Adelie penguins, a species fast declining in parts of the world, has been discovered on remote islands off the Antarctic Peninsula, surprised scientists. The first bird census of the Danger Islands unearthed over 750,000 Adelie breeding pairs, more than the rest of the area combined, the team reported in the journal Scientific Reports.
Australia and France have kicked off a fresh push this week to create a vast marine sanctuary in pristine East Antarctica, hoping to build on the success of landmark deal secured last year at a key annual conservation summit.
Modelling of the effects of sea temperature rises in the Southern Oceans indicates that krill in the seas around South Georgia may be the hardest hit of the region by the effects of global warming, reports the August edition of the South Georgia Newsletter.
Antarctic krill are usually less than 6 cm in length, but their size belies the major role they play in sustaining much of the life in the Southern Ocean. They are the primary food source for many species of whales, seals, penguins and fish.
Bob Chartoff and Lynn Hendee of Chartoff Productions announce plans for “Ice”, an epic action-adventure feature film based on the true story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Endurance expedition. Shackleton’s remarkable rescue of his 27 men when their ship, the Endurance, went down in the pack ice off the Antarctic coast is internationally regarded as the greatest adventure in history.