Plunging into the fast ice...

Despite all mod-cons, the navigator plots the course in the traditional way.

Duse Bay is on the east side of the Peninsula and the west side of the Weddell Sea. It was named by Otto Nordenskjöld after Lieutenant S.A. Duse who was the cartographer of the 1901-04 Swedish expedition.

At about 4:00am came the clarion call from Shaun for a beautiful dawn. We haven't seen one so far, and, who knows, we may not see another, so all the photographers gathered for the fray. The morning did not disappoint, as you can see from these pics, all taken in calm, perfect conditions.

In flight at dawn.

Silhouette of a bird over Duse Bay.

Only a few hardy souls were out and about at 4:30am.

Dawn sunshine accentuates the snow build on this Antarctic Peninsula mountain.

Reflections on an Antarctic mountain.

The only ripples are from the Orion.

Warm, direct sun lights up the mountains surrounding Duse Bay.

After the golden hour passed (i.e. 5:00am), the captain manoevred Orion head first into the fast ice (sea ice fixed to the land). This particular bay of fast ice was old and had at least partially been melted and refrozen. There we saw emperor penguins. These are apparently extremely rare - they have only been seen once on previous expeditions - and the discovery of just a couple caused great excitement amongst the staff naturalists on board.

The Orion, driven up into the fast ice.

A huge sheet of fast ice clings to the shore of Duse Bay.

A zodiac full of photographers capturing the rarely seen emperor penguins.

Two emperor penguins, all alone on a mass of fast ice.

Minke whale, seen in Duce Bay.

What do these two emperor penguins think about being watched by 100 people on a huge steel floating thing which had just crashed into their home?

Is this another emperor penguin? Probably a much more common Adelie. We need Doug Gould to adjudicate.

Heavily striated with cracks is this sheet of aged sea ice.

A clear dawn brings abundant photo opportunities.

The eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula lies in a rain shadow, and snow cover is often very thin.

After the emperor penguins had been photographed more than Heidi Klum, we were able to go ashore for a walk across the fast ice onto a trapped iceberg. It looks benign, but the iceberg rocked gently, meaning that there was a treacherous interface with the ice sheet, nasty to put your foot into. Luckily, we kept dry at this tricky spot.

Shaun, Erin and Ian, the Orion scout crew getting ready for 100 visitors.

A remote Argentine base on Duse Bay.

Johanna (assistant expedition leader) facilitates the loading of zodiacs.

The short trek to the stranded iceberg.

It's best not to step in the sometimes very wide cracks which traverse the aged fast ice.

There is a pattern to the cracking of the fast ice.

Clambering onto the stranded iceberg.

Atop the stranded berg, this pic taken by celebrated National Geographic photographer Dan Westergren.

The expedition's video chronicler is Jim Napoli.

The kayak exploration of the fast ice edge was interesting. Expedition staff are well practiced at getting old and rickety people into the kayaks, and they equip each of us with EPIRBS. The water looks calm, but swirling currents make paddling difficult. There seems to be a continual flow from underneath the ice shelf, which, we assume, is the upwelling that brings the essential mineral nutrients to the surface to feed the phytoplankton and then the krill and then everyone else!

Kayakers out and about on the calm waters of Duse Bay.

Aboard the kayak in Duse Bay.

About a metre of undersea ice for 150m above the water.

The crystalline edge of the sea ice.

An inevitable polar plunge took place in the calm waters of Duse Bay. Most of us were brave enough to resist it, but maybe two dozen, as well as many expedition staff, were foolhardy enough to jump or dive into the -1C water. We overheard one person, on declining to plunge, say that "our parents got rid of the dumb ones". No-one spent much too time in the water!

Shaun Powell, Expedition Leader, sets the example by being first in for the polar plunge.

When two people do the plunge together, one has to wait for the other to get up the only ladder.

The polar plunge is well documented.

How different was Sir Ernest Shackleton's experience of the Weddell Sea, where his ship Endurance got stuck in pack ice in 1915 leading to its infamous fate, as photographed by Frank Hurley? This set the scene for Shackleton's epic story of survival, which we hope to follow. Today was just the first step.

One of many great reference books in the Orion library, well thumbed by the passengers on this 100th anniversary. Shackleton's ship, the "Endurance" was lost in the Weddell Sea on 21Nov1915.