Category: South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Aitcho Island

It is with sad and heavy hearts that we do our last landing- at Aitcho Island. There are two penguins nesting here: The Chinstraps and Gentoos. The island is alive with new life- large penguin chicks are being looked after in large creches. The chicks wobble around behind their parents to get fed, and they run and trip over their own two feet. This is really adorable to watch.

The skuas are around trying to get easy pickings from the creches –and they are very strategic in their approach, working in twos. While one detracts the adults, the other attempts to steal a chick.

There are also Chinstraps that are performing some mating dances. They also say hello to one another by making a braying / donkey sound while lifting their heads to the sky.

The Gentoo chicks are really curious and if you stand still or sit on your haunches they will come to you to get a good look. As a matter of fact, I was standing and speaking to one of the passengers and one of the curious little fellas came to us, sniffed and pecked at his walking stick- I think he was hoping for some food. When there was none of that forthcoming he just laid down at our feet.

I am somewhat heartbroken, writing this last account of our most epic trip ever!! It is as if putting it up on the blog is a final admittance to it being over. If I had to summarise it in one statement it would be like living through my very own three-week long National Geographic episode!

It has been great to get to meet so many people from all around the world and across all walks of life! To share experiences that are difficult to describe in their full glory and totally understand, unless you have been there! I am sure that I haven’t been able to capture ALL the beauty of the Islands and the continent, and for what I have missed, I refer you to a specially gifted photographer that was one of the passengers on the cruise: his website is www.ericesterle.com and I would encourage you to check out his current images, and hopefully by the end of February some exceptional images from this amazing part of the world- I am sure they will be awesome!!

Upon leaving the South Shetlands we were blessed with a sunset like a constantly changing painting, and due to the long days it lasted near on four hours! The photos speak much louder than my words ever could!

As we head into the 2-day trip back to Ushuaia, we are wondering what the infamous roaring forties and the Drake Passage will bring- but all we got was calm waters and sunshine as we came into the Beagle Channel again. The Drake’s reputation was not to be fulfilled at all this trip- it was like crossing a lake!

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay is home to a large Chinstrap penguin colony, with one lonely Macaroni penguin. It is also the placement of another Argentine Station. On our landing we go through a walk around the Island- which is only 2km in length. It is pretty rocky and slippery due to a mixture of penguin poo and mud! The penguins and their chicks are mighty dirty due to this mixture! The only clean adults are those that have come back from their feed.

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Almirante Brown Station

The trip to Almirante Brown Station will be one of my most memorable portions of the trip!!

Brown station is one of many Argentine stations on the Antarctic Peninsula; although with the economic situation in the country as it is, there is very little presence at these stations at present.

There are split activities again- with half the people going ashore and the other half going on zodiac cruising. Our group goes zodiac cruising first- in Paradise Bay which surrounds the base. Within the 2-hour duration of the cruise we are overwhelmed and humbled by all our sightings –to the point where one didn’t know where to look! At first we cruise towards a Weddel seal on the main land- it’s pretty far though. Directly hereafter we cruise towards some floating ice that has a crab eater seal resting on it. Do yourself a favour and Google what Crabeater seals’ teeth look like- like delicate carved jewellery! While we gaze at this seal a call on the radio alerts us to humpback whales in the bay- so we head in that direction. For the next 4 hours four whales remain playing in the bay- unusually playing very near the rocky shores where it is not very deep, and hence they surface often. I didn’t take very many photos- I have pretty much none of the whales I saw on the whole trip as I just wanted to enjoy their beauty without a camera between me and them. We were all hoping to see some fluking (whale tails) but they only did that when everyone put their cameras away 🙂 . Once we had soaked up some whale watching we headed off to the leopard seal that was resting on ice, that the kayakers spotted. It looked around at us a bit and yawned to show off its magnificent set of teeth!! On our return we did some more whale watching and spotted another Weddel seal on the ice. We turned off the engine in the hope that it would sing for us- again I refer you to Google for an amazing, nearly electronic sounding song.

Being really satisfied with that abundant wildlife experience, I’m rearing to go on land as there is a large hill, covered in snow behind the station that one can slide down on. You do have to climb a pretty steep hill each time you want to slide…but that’s part of the fun!

As a group of us start hiking up the hill in deep snow our attention is drawn to a great big noise: one of the nearby glaciers has calved and created a large wave that rippled across the bay and the noise echoed between the mountains.

After a 10-minute climb we get to the top. I get myself ready- all you need is the waterproof pants and our red jackets. These are slippery enough and off you go!! It takes a while to sort out what works best but then I’m off; legs lifted and quickly speeding down the hill. Towards the bottom I hit a bump, turn around and do the final bit on my stomach, like the penguins sometimes do.

It was so much fun that I brave the hill climb again for #2… and it was fabulous!! So fabulous indeed that after a couple of minutes to catch my breath I went up for #3!

Upon my arrival in the queue up top I remember telling everyone that sliding down this hill is “Like a drug!”. I did some quick calculations though…how would one increase speed in this scenario. Decrease friction- but this was not possible. So… physics would suggest that an increase in mass would increase velocity. How does one increase mass instantly? GO TANDEM!! It didn’t take much to convince Ross to join me. Ross sat in poll positions, I hooked my legs onto him, he held on and we were off…took a little while to sort ourselves out but when we did we shot down that slope like a rocket!! It was soooo much fun!! All until we hit the last bump in the slide and I smashed my face into the back of Ross’s head!

From the bottom of the hill, where there was a bit of a crowd… I just heard comments of “Wow, they are going so fast” and then “Oh no there’s a lot of blood!”. Yeah, once I landed at the bottom of the hill one of the ladies who is a nurse ran up to me, wiped my face down to check where the bleeding was coming from and confirmed that I had a cut on my nose. I, in turn also told her that the nose was bleeding on the inside- I could taste all the blood. Our expedition leader rushed to me to help me up and take me to the zodiac to get to the ship’s doctor. She constantly checked up on me for dizziness, coordination, pain etc. I could tell, from the look on peoples’ faces, that there was a lot of blood on my face; however due to the adrenalin I did not feel any pain. Over the radio, our expedition leader asked one of the guides to clean up the blood.

The doctor cleaned me up – I did enquire as to why she was wiping my eyebrows and cheeks and everywhere- she confirmed that I’m covered in blood. She first placed a plaster on the cut- but it bled right through, so she used some skin glue- which worked like a charm. I had some swelling on the forehead, but no further signs of concussion etc. I was super glad to have all my teeth and no broken nose!! I applied an icepack every few hours.

At dinner I got many questions of concern, but relief that I was there… I did mention that I lost a lot of blood, but not my appetite J. I didn’t realise just how long the blood trail was until people who saw the incident starting telling me their version of events:

  1. Jo, you slid down the slope, holding your nose, with blood dripping everywhere- and yet you still had a smile on your face
  2. Jo… it looked like a penguin died on that slope!
  3. We had a person who stopped sliding part way down the slope and wasn’t sure where the slide was…and everyone just shouted back: “Follow the blood!”
  4. Our expedition photographer managed to take a few pics prior to clean up and showed them to me. His statement was that the photos do not depict just how epic it was… I asked him what sort of a photographer he was if he couldn’t capture that 🙂

The next morning, I was dreading looking in the mirror- I just imagined that I would have two black eyes and nose and that I would look as if I were beaten up! So I walked into a dark bathroom, closed my eyes and switched on the lights… and I looked OK- no colour changes!! Yeah!!

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Cuverville Island

Cuverville Island has a large Gentoo colony nesting on its banks. It also contains shallow waters which creates an iceberg graveyard. While walking around the island we witness two skuas eating a small penguin chick. The skuas are very skilled at distracting the adult penguins- hard as they try to protect their young.

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Gonzales Videla Station

After Danco Island we head off to Waterboat Point – Gonzalez Videla Station. This is a Chilean research station, though not too much research is done here. Nearly all personnel residing here for the summer are military in nature. They are very welcoming and excited to tell us about their station and work.

The station is home to a Gentoo penguin rookery and a very rare leucistic Gentoo penguin. Leucistic penguins are not albinos, but do not have black pigmentation- a genetic disorder. This penguin is a female and has normal colour offspring. The chicks here, most couples having two, are much larger than those in Danco Island as all snow has melted. As I watch the penguins I note that as the mates try to impress their partners and bring them rocks for their nests, some are lazy and bring what i have termed “phantom rocks” . In other words they do all the motions but actually bring no rock back- but they do pretend drop these non-existent rocks. It was really funny to watch!

This station is also on the Antarctic mainland- and thus stepping onto the land means I have landed on my seventh continent!

As the station is relatively small we split the visit and zodiac cruising. During our cruise we see some spectacular icebergs and penguins trying to gather on the icebergs… they seem to have a theory that the smaller the iceberg, the more penguins can fit on it. As they launch out of the water like little missiles they knock off half the others that have managed to get on…endless entertainment really!

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Danco Island

Arriving at Danco Island is like waking up in an Antarctic dream! Steep, snow covered mountains rise from the sea and the Errera Channel has beautifully carved icebergs floating on a calm, mist covered ocean. We land on this island to observe the Gentoo penguins. The snow is still very deep- which is unusual for this time of the year. Penguin chicks are thus also relatively small as penguins wait until they have a snow free area to nest. The penguins have carved deep “penguin highways” in this snow and sometimes all you see is the top of their heads waddling between ocean and rookery.

While we do a few short walks in the snow- to various rookeries- a heavy snowfall commences- which adds to the mood. The snowflakes are giant clumps and I observe the delicate snowflake structures on my gloves before the few seconds it takes for their beauty to dissipate.

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Deception Island

Our second landing for the day is in the furthest, southerly point of the South Shetlands: Telefon Bay in Deception Island. This is an active volcano, whose one side has broken away during one of the eruptions and now the caldera is filled with sea water. The entrance to the caldera is through a narrow gorge. That has a steep side with a couple of frozen waterfalls and on the left is multicoloured, multi layered volcano. Just as you enter the caldera there is an old whaling station. The island is named as such as the whalers expected an abundance of wildlife, but found none. As we carry on sailing, to the furthest point away from the entrance we are hit by the vast difference of this landscape to the others we have seen. Besides the very low clouds, which does not allow us to see the top of the caldera, the landscape is a mixture of midnight black basalt, contrasted by white glaciers and grey waves where these mix.

At our landing we hike up to an area that saw volcanic activity a few decades ago. The landscape is really striking in its colour contrasts- the grey layers one can see are actually in the glacier, these are not rocks.

Nothing grows here except a bit of algae, and we found one lonely Weddel seal on the beach.

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Turret Point (King Edward Island)

Our first zodiac landing in three days had us all excited to get off the ship and onto some land! Turret Point is named for its rock structures that look like turrets. Here we find elephant seals in great numbers…again, belching and farting and sneezing mucous over each other. We also see Adelies for the first time- these penguins have a distinctive white eye. There are also chinstraps around. From our landing point we also see a marvelous volcanic island (Penguin Island), the maroon colour of the scoria is distinct (though possibly not well captured due to lack of light).

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Antarctica South Shetlands & Antarctic Peninsula

Elephant Island

At the end of nearly three sea days we arrived at Point Wild, Elephant Island. This is the northern most island of the South Shetlands. It is most famous for Shackleton’s men having spent over 4 months here while they waited for a rescue attempt. One cannot call this place a beach…it is barely a rocky outcrop. That eleven men spent 4 months here and survived on penguin and seal meat is amazing. I have marked this in red in one of the photos. The seas around here are rough and extremely cold, and the cold winds whip in from the sea and down the neighbouring glaciers! There is a statue here of the bust of Videla- the only captain who would lend Shackleton a ship to rescue his men. If you haven’t yet investigated or do not know the history of Shackleton and his adventure with the Endurance then you must read up on it- it’s very exciting and “Endurance” is a most suitable name for the whole expedition, not just the ship.