I got an email from a friend asking me about the picture I am using for the blog header.

"Where did you take that?"

Antarctica on 30th March 2007 in southern Marguerite Bay, and looking towards the Antarctic Peninsula.

It was a fantastic day's work, making oceanographic measurements with CTD sensor to work out the ocean circulation beneath the King George VI Ice shelf.

Here is an picture with a similar view from the same day showing the whole scene.

In the foreground the virtually flat stuff is sea ice, frozen sea water that forms annually. It looks so flat because there is fresh snow on the surface. It's less than a metre thick and the ship I was on could make steady, but slow progress. In the background are the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula.

I have lost count of the times I have stood on an icebreaking ship, breaking sea ice and thought that I wanted to jump over the side and run. Odd that.

The exact location was in this area.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=-68.827834,-67.181396&spn=3.057372,13.07373&t=h&z=7&output=embed&w=425&h=350]