Today has a late morning visit with A23 Alpha, the world's largest iceberg (currently). This isn't it, just an interesting iceberg along the way.
To fill the time, the chefs have created a Grand Brunch Buffet in the main dining room.
Here's A23A. It has a surface area of 1500 sq miles (3x NYC), a height above water of 40 meters (and about 400 meters below) for a guesstimated weight of 1 trillion tons. After the brunch I feel similarly weighty.
It's impossible to show the size of this huge berg, but here's my best attempt. Shot from the highest deck you can barely see the top of the iceberg. The ship is about a half mile from the berg.
We have a late afternoon visit to Elephant Island but here's the scenery along the way.
Clarence Island, part of the three island grouping.
Cornwallis Island.
Elephant Island is most famous for being the refuge of Ernest Shackleton's crew after their ship, Endurance, was crushed in the pack ice in 1916. Most of the crew was here for more than 6 months while Shackleton and 5 others crossed 720 miles of open ocean in a lifeboat to seek aid from the South Georgia whaling station. He successfully returned and all 28 men of the party survived.
The book
Endurance by Lansing tells the story.
This is where Shackleton's crew stayed. You can see the memorial (about 20 ft tall) erected on the beach where they used their overturned lifeboats and rocks to fashion living quarters.
A wider view
Here is Shackleton's larder, penguins and sea lions.
The map of our tour through Antarctica
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