DIANE BURKO

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JANUARY 4: NEKO - OUR LAST LANDING IN ANTARCTICA

Landing on Neko alongside Paradise Bay was such sweet poetry for me. First discovered in the early 20th century by the Belgian explorer Adrien de Gerlache,  it was named after a Scottish whaling boat the Neko, which operated in the area between 1911 and 1924. This other worldly destination  was one of the highlights of my last voyage.

I understand it to be the most visited tourist destination on the continent - no wonder  - since it has it all: sparkling views of enormous icebergs seen after climbing up high above, a rocky coast line of rocks scattered with ice, and a glacier providing thunderous noise of the icebergs crashing against one another as they intermittently calve.

Two years ago i climbed to a vintage point and looked down below. This time I decided to stay along the shore and focus more on the icebergs and the glacier. 

As I walked along the shore and looked back i spied a camera set up high facing the glacier. As assumed, I later found out from our SOI Director, Geoff Green, that was indeed James Balog's (of Chasing Ice fame) time-lapse camera.