March 3, 2008 - Seal's Antarctic Expedition: Jones Channel
by Kate Laird

We motored through the Jones Channel today. In 1992 when Hamish was last here, it was called the Jones Iceshelf - a floating glacier, the work of hundreds of thousands of years, firmly anchored between the mainland and Blaiklock Island. He never dreamed that we would motor through it 16 years later.

The Jones Iceshelf in 1991; we motored through that today. (Hamish Laird photo)

We searched the mountainscape hard for the site of Giles Kershaw's grave, but couldn't see it. The legendary Antarctic pilot died here on the iceshelf in 1991 - flying a gyrocopter on a National Geographic film project. We did see the slope Hamish had skied down when he went to visit the grave (he'd been on boat-watch during the funeral). The slope is now bare rock.

Hamish skied down this mountain in 1991.

It's possible we simply couldn't see the site, because we were now at sea level, not approaching from the surface of the ice shelf as they had done in 1991.

For more about Seal see http://www.expeditionsail.com.