AndrewGeorgeNetting

At last we took off from Santiago airport on the flight to Ushuaia, the gateway to the Antarctic Peninsular. Below us are the surprisingly dry foothills of the Andes but they are getting higher: yes, there's some snow. And now I can see that there must be thousands of square kilometres of snow-covered peaks with wild rivers and lakes, some with glaciers calving into them. And there, there's an extinct volcanic crater filled with snow: like a cup of cream. Is that a house with a galvanised iron roof glinting in the sun? No, probably not: just a rectangular patch of snow. Half way to Punta Arenas and the cloud is getting thicker just allowing the occasional glimpse of rivers and lakes. We must be inland from Chiloe with its enormous rainfall from the collision ... read more

One of the things that I had been really looking forward to when setting off for Antarctica in 2002 was to experience its grandeur. The snow-covered mountains disappearing into a blue vault; the enormous tabular icebergs floating past with some twenty stories above the waterline; glacier faces crumbling into the sea and the black of volcanic outcrops against a white backdrop of snow. As it turned out we did not quite get to see all of these things, partly because we were not in the right place for all of them and partly because, on that first visit, we had very little sunshine. Yet, I am certainly not sorry that we went because we did see a snow covered island against the blue sky in the South Shetlands. We did see tabular icebergs in the ... read more

One morning on the 2008 voyage we awoke to find ourselves anchored within a zodiac's ride of Seymour Island on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsular. I had long been awaiting this moment because Seymour Island is unique in that the cretaceous/tertiary (KT) boundary, the boundary at 65 million years ago between the end of the age of the dinosaurs and the present age of the mammals, is clearly evident. And not only evident but exposed because it is too cold for plant growth and yet snow- and ice-free, being in the lee of James Ross Island. So our enthusiastic palaeontological guide and presenter on the ABC's Catalyst program, Paul Willis, had us boarding the zodiacs as the last of the morning fog lifted to reveal a perfect summer's day. As we approached a ... read more

One afternoon in 2002 some of the zodiacs took a short tour from Neko Harbour but noticed that others were hovering around close to the ship. What was encouraging them to circle around in that somewhat erratic manner? It soon became apparent as we approached that there was a minke whale there flirting with the zodiacs. We had already experienced some social interaction with humpback whales when we were on board ship, but this was clearly something new. It would surface and blow and then show us its dorsal fin. Then it would slowly roll so you could see its white underbelly and it would dip under the zodiac and slowly disappear. Everybody is craning their necks to see where it will emerge next and it always appears in the most unexpected place. In due ... read more

Hydrurga is the Latin generic name for the leopard seal and there were certainly leopard seals in the water at Hydrurga Rocks. In fact, they seemed to be interested in the zodiacs and followed us into the bay and swam about off-shore for perhaps half an hour. They were no doubt there because there was a chinstrap penguin colony a few hundred metres from where we landed and the chinstraps were well aware of their presence. There were also several dozen fur seals, their external ears being evident, which mostly lay around doing nothing unless they felt that one had encroached on their territory. Then they reared up on their flippers and barked and one could see into the surprising pinkness of their mouths. We also saw the occasional Weddell seal in 2002 and particularly ... read more