Over the sea ice

This was a fantastic survey flight which took us way out over miles and miles of frozen sea.

After this flight I think I’ve definately got a better feel for how vast the sea ice extends in this part of the world. The sea ice conditions continually changed, from relatively solid looking stuff to more broken up pieces interspersed with huge ice bergs.

At one point, Pilot Andy started explaining the kinds of considerations he had to deal if we had an engine failure, or worse, when we were this far from land!

We had to divert from our original flight plan to avoid some incoming weather. By the time we got back towards the Peninsula coastline, the cloud was really quite low.

Andy took us back to Rothera via a stunning route. We cruised underneath the low clouds, in between islands of huge mountains.