Reporter's Notebook: Life on the Antarctic Ice

SNOW ISLAND, Antarctica, Nov. 30, 2007 — -- We reached as far as 65 degrees south two days ago -- roughly 50 miles north of the Antarctic Circle -- before turning back.

During the past month the big ship -- the National Geographic Endeavour, a former fish-processing boat converted to a tourist-research vessel 25 years ago -- had spent many hours crunching its way slowly through sea ice, squeezing through the beautiful LeMaire Channel and onto the Branfield Straits.

Eventually, the ice stopped us.

While still recovering from the shock and emotion of being the first ship to reach the sinking Explorer one week ago, the rest of my scout of the Antarctic Peninsula was a great success. I will return to the Antarctic Peninsula on New Year's Eve -- with five teammates -- to spend all of January sea kayaking along the eastern side, the Weddell Sea side.

My prime reason for spending this past month here was to get a sense of how much ice surrounds the continent this year (each year is different) and to talk to scientists and researchers here about expected conditions for the rest of the austral summer.

On Thanksgiving night, we had pulled the ship into Fildes Bay, loaded my three, big (21 feet 10 inch) kayaks onto rubber Zodiacs and ferried them to shore. There we were greeted by a small pack of leopard seals swimming in the shallows and the four-man team of Chileans that runs the Harbor Master's office on King George Island.

KGI is home to a dozen small scientific bases, each representing a different country (a reminder that Antarctica is the only place on the planet successfully governed by international treaty).

It also has the only public runway in Antarctica, used by resupply planes and the occasional emergency effort. (King George is where the passengers and crew of the sunken Explorer would ironically be delivered the following day and flown out by charter plane.)

The men from the Harbor Master's office greeted us at the edge of the ice. It was darkening at 9:30 p.m. as they helped me pull the kayaks wrapped in bubble wrap and plastic onto shore. They've been stationed here for a year and three of them are due to leave within the month.