Two exciting events occurred today. One is that I successfully took a shower, washing my hair and body with one hand while the other held on for dear life to the grab bars.
The second was the reason I needed the shower; the ship passed by A23a, the largest iceberg in the world, this afternoon, and I risked frostbite and broken bones navigating the slippery, bitterly cold decks to take this crappy picture (my cabin was on the wrong side of the ship or I could have viewed it in relative safety and comfort.)
A23a calved off the Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf in 1986, taking a Soviet research station with it. It was stuck in sandbars on the sea bed for many years but broke free in 2020. And now it's heading slowly for South Georgia (and really, who could blame it?) It's approximately 1500 square miles, so I had abandoned the outer decks long before it disappeared into the fog.
Video gives a little idea of the scope of the thing. It filled the entire horizon for more than an hour.
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