Ross Sea

Anything that changes in one part of it affects another.

Above the Ross Sea at Cape Crozier on Ross Island, along comes this blue fishing vessel and begins to deploy a long line.

True cost for ordering toothfish in a New York restaurant is that essentially you're destroying an ecosystem.

We have a chance to protect it or to lose it forever.

It's my absolute pleasure today to introduce you to my guest, David Ainley, because today is the 10th anniversary since the Ross Sea was designated as a marine protected area.

And David was the very man that initiated the idea for this.

Welcome to the show, David.

Great to be here.

And after that, he was left thinking, well, what do I do next to be relevant here? I've got to do something.

I'm now Britain's greatest living explorer, but what more can I do? And he came up with this idea of crossing the continent of Antarctica from one side to the other, from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea by way of the pole.

I mean, I don't know why he thought that was important, but that was his ambition.

And, of course, he never did that.

It's become clear to me that cruise lines set a maximum number of solar cabins they are prepared to have per sailing, and at launch, of course, all of them are available.

For example, I was very interested in a Ponant expedition cruise to the Antarctica Ross Sea.

It was launching with a hefty discount, and they made it clear there was going to be a limited number of cabins available for solar occupancy.

At launch, they were also having a small 20% solo supplement on those.

The fares are lower because these ships are harder to fill due to the number of sea days and the length of the cruises.

How do you find all of these? In addition to searching or asking your travel agent, check if lines you like have a solo cruises page on their website.

Many do, especially the more luxury lines Seabourn, Silversea, Crystal and so on.

There they will list sailings where they are offering discounts to help us fill their emptier ships.

I'm excited to have a chat to you about all things Antarctica today.

Yes, it's really timed beautifully with my cards and it's the 10th anniversary, the Ross Sea, getting marine protection at the end of this month.

It's very timely that the focus is on that continent.

How many times have you been there?

How many places around Antarctica have you been?

I've been to the Antarctic Peninsula, which was the first trip.

And then while I was working at Scott Base, I was in the Ross Sea, mainly on a place called Ross Island, which you know very well because it's named after your ancestor.

So around Scott Base, McMurdo Station, I went off to the continent to a place called Cape Roberts, which is on the other side of McMurdo Sound.

Oh.

My last trip was on a, uh, on a, um, tourist vessel that went from the southern South America down into the Southern Ocean, and then all around, way around the Southern Ocean to the Ross Sea and back up to Bluff via the Subantarctic Islands, which was an amazing trip to do.

But, um, no, I'm not going, um, down to the ice any longer.

But, uh, certainly enjoyed the time I, I was as part of my job, both with the New Zealand program and then doing some work on Antarctic tour ships, mainly out of South America.

David Koblenz says more research is needed to identify what is making a difference.

The Defence Department has gone shopping with up to $20 million for a new polar drone to fly as far south as the Ross Sea.

It would send back data from its sensors to defence, maritime security agencies and international partners.

Phil Pennington has more.

It's become clear to me that cruise lines set a maximum number of solo cabins they're prepared to have per sailing, and at launch, of course, all of them are available.

For example, I was very interested in a Ponant expedition cruise to the Antarctica Ross Sea.

It was launching with a hefty discount, and they made it clear there was going to be a limited number of cabins available for solo occupancy.

And at launch, they were also having a very small 20% solo supplement on those.

But then things took a seriously bizarre turn.

Six years after he vanished, something strange started showing up in the message queue at McMurdo Station, the main American base on the Ross Sea in the Antarctic.

The timing is worth noting, and by then, Dish had been missing for almost half a decade, and his case was solidly closed.

During the long winter of nineteen seventy-one, the teletype at McMurdo's message center began printing short transmissions relayed through foreign Antarctic stations.