Holy cow! The MS Fram has had to be rescued by a Royal Navy vessel, the HMS Protector, after becoming trapped among huge ice floes in the Antarctic Sound at the nothern tip of the Peninsula. Happily no one was injured and the ship was able to continue its voyage after the operation which lasted a couple of hours. Only last week another Antarctic cruise ship, the Silver Explorer, had to cancel its voyage and return to the Argentinian port of Ushuaia after being damaged by a freak wave which some reports put at 10m high. The bridge of the ship was damaged and four crew members injured, none seriously.
It’s a dangerous business, this polar travel. Let’s hope that’s all the drama from Antarctica for this season. We sail from Ushuaia on the MS Fram on 22 February, just over four weeks from now.