News of a change of plan and that we were going in closer to the continent brought nearly everyone onto the bridge late last night as we moved into uncharted waters. The echo sounder was closely monitored as we sought a narrow but very deep channel between the icebergs.

A hush of concentration fell as we passed through a gallery of carved ice. Sheer and sharp planes alternated with piled ice rubble and blue honeycombs of collapsing walls. On one side a majestic flotilla of ragged peaks receded into the distance like mystical Chinese prints. On the other a midnight sunset backlit the stratus cloud over the continent in garish stripes of pinks and yellows and orange.

I sat high in the navigator's chair, watching a strange twilight illuminating the soft band of the continent and its foreground of twisted bergs. I listened to the hypnotic rhythm of the engine as we slipped across a flat sea.

Ben first saw signs of human occupation - a large pole, a series of 5 marker drums heading up a hill and above the rocks, a line of containers or were they sheds? A path to the sea edge linked it to another cluster of buildings. Were they vehicles?

We peered through binoculars to the French Antarctic island base, Dumont d'Urville.

The links are strong. The leaders of both research projects on V3 have connections. Catherine carries out her benthic work there every two years and Steve uses the supply ship servicing the base, L'Astrolabe for regular sampling along the 140 degree transect between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville for his ocean observation program, Survostral.

Kristina was on deck to look at the base she had visited twice in summer doing CO2 and phytoplankton sampling. She drew a mud map for me. The island, Isle de Petrel, is tiny. It would take about an hour to walk around. On it is a two storey accommodation block, another wing with a recreation room, bar, kitchen and dining rooms, and a series of outbuildings providing laboratories, mechanical and bio-marine modules.

Dumont d'Urville was set up as a research facility in the 50's, a time when many nations rushed to establish permanent bases on the continent. The sturdy pre fabricated steel huts still serve a community of around 100 at peak times in the summer and a handful of winterers.

The setting is extraordinary. It is literally inside a penguin colony because surrounding the island are smaller islands and outcrops covered in wildlife. It is set beside a beautiful glacier and looks over the continent. Biological research here is particularly strong and Dumont d'Urville boasts the longest existing data set on penguins. It also carries out atmospheric research and glaciology.

There is an airstrip on another island, and on the continent itself at Cape Prudhomme, field huts and a fuel farm service the traverse vehicles as they set off for the new joint French/Italian base, Concordia over a thousand kilometres distant, on top of the ice dome.

Members of the French team loyally maintained a visual link to the settlement as we steamed by, willing some kind of connection. But there was no one waving a big red towel at the passing little red ship. In the small hours, while we watched the sun come up the d'Urvillians were sleeping.



Pics:
Dumont d'Urville

Margot Foster is a journalist currently on board the Australian Aurora Australis, an Australian research vessel currently participating in the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML, IPY project 53). She works with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).