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Published: January 11th 2008
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A 21st Century Explorer
Antarctica watch out...look who is coming! Sheena makes use of her new Christmas present! After two days of excitement building up in Ushuaia (The Southern most town in the world) we finally made our way to the port to meet up with the ship - a Russian icebreaker called the Professor Molchanov. Sailing through the Beagle Channel to meet the open ocean and take on the legendary Drake Passage. The mood on the ship was full of anticipation as we were shown to our cabin by the Russian crew before going through the emergency drills....Sheena and I instantly made a name for ourselves by being the only ones to turn up to the muster point during the drill without our lifejackets! We sat in the water tight enclosed lifeboats being shown the equipment and rations of food/water should we need to follow in the footsteps of Shackleton and his crew on the Endevour.
It´s an odd experience leaving the Southern most town in the world and heading due South for 3 days without seeing anything asides from various types of Albatross and petrels. The photos do not do the size of these birds justice - the wingspans on some were well in excess of 2 metres. Most of the time making our way across
Albatrosses
Wandering Albatrosses, petrels and other birds followed behind the boat as we left the Drake Passage and headed out to open ocean. Directio...due South for 3 days. the Drake passage before crossing the Antarctic convergence (the official point at which Antarctica begins) was spent in wildlife lectures, snapping photos from the aft deck and trying to remember the names of the 45 other passengers.
Crossing the convergence is really something special. The air changes and becomes significantly colder, the types of birds that follow the ship change and then on the horizon the realisation suddenly hits you that the cloud on the horizon you have been looking at for the past hour is in fact an iceberg the size of a football pitch! Suddenly chunks of ice from the size of your head to the size of a car float past the boat...some we miss, some we hit...head on!....this boat is stopping for nothing!! The relative boredom of having seen basically nothing for 3 days is wiped away in minutes...whales off the bow, giant icebergs and the first penguin ducking in and out of the water.
New Year´s morning we anchored off Brown Bluff Island where a colony of Adelie penguins were nesting. A beautiful sunny morning anchored next to a massive glaciar that dropped straight into the bay. Today was our first landing and
Watch Out!
Our first iceberg as we pass the Antarctic Convergence...the size of four football pitches in some cases. a buzz was going around the boat. As if to remind us that this truely is the end of the world within minutes the weather turned on us, the wind picked up and the landing was cancelled. Instead we head south on the east side of the South Shetland Islands in the search of packed sea ice and potentially our first sighting of seals resting on the residual ice floes. It didn´t disappoint - the ship just crashed through the ice knocking any ice either side of the bow. We had our first sighting of crabeater seals and Adelie Penguins.
It is impossible to describe all the sights we have seen and even if we did we could not do them justice. Seeing our first penguins (Gentoos) on the nest was very special when you see the little one pop out from under its mother to feed. Crabeater and Weddel seals basically lie around all day in their blubber jackets so it is a bit like watching a giant sausage on ice. However when you get to Elephant seals it is a whole different story. Our last landing, when I thought I couldn't be wowed any longer we saw
Our First Taste of Wildlife
A Chinstrap penguin just off Vega Island. 10s of male elephant seals - they're boisterous, loud and about 4 times the size of a man....and that's the small ones! The size of them quite simply blew me away. The animals are so tame...there is a rule to stay within 5m range of penguins/seals unless they approach you. Frequently we were within a foot of them where you could hear the seals breathe or be within range of a penguin as it projectile craps.
On about day 7 the highlights to date had been penguins - quite literally thousands - and seals. Something had to change though...we wanted whales. The day had started well - Sheena slipped down the gang plank making her way to the zodiac making my day! We opted to spend the afternoon on the ship rather than doing to 2nd landing on Cuverville Island. Sheena had barely said that all we need now is our own private whale to swim past whilst everyone else was on land. 20secs later a humpback whale swam passed diving and showing us the classic 'W' of it's tail as it fluked and disappeared. We thought we had seen it all before we left our anchorage and set
Humpback Whales
Humpback whales put on a show for over an hour in Whalers Bay before 1 in the distance breaches fully out of the water several times out across Whalers Bay. Humpbacks everywhere. We didn't know in which direction to look. It is the most incredible thing I have ever seen. The population of humpbacks is now making a comeback (c. 30k to 200k) - having now seen them this is a sight that is most definitely worth guarding for other people to see.
False advertising is probably the best description for the weather we experienced. Whilst it was cold - bitter on some days - we had so many blue sky days and calm waters where the whole landscape was reflected perfectly on the surrounding sea. When the sun comes out the whole vista changes bringing out the beauty of the continent and the various icebergs calved into the most bizarre shapes by the waves. On one particular day on a visit to Paradise Bay the crew organised a polar bbq on the aft deck. The view was better than any postcard or picture I have seen. As the sun dropped (about 2am!) the colours of the sky reflected on the sea and the ice showed why Antarctica is so special...it was as if we were on a different planet.
One of the strangest
Crabeater Seal in Neko Harbour
A sleeping seal just before the iceberg calved creating a mini tsunami across the harbour landings was a visit to the Ukranian research station Vernadsky. Sold by the British for GBP 1 (as rumour has it) the station houses 15 or so people (scientists, a cook, a mechanic, a radio operator & a doctor among others) each assigned to the station for 1 year. The crew have not eaten fruit or vegetables since October and will not until they return home in February! We had our passports stamped with Antarctica which was exciting, had a shot of vodka in the southern most bar in the world and watched as the barman performed magic tricks to us. Very very bizarre although what would I expect when these people do not see daylight for 6months and do not eat fruit or vegetables because supplies have run out. There's some irony in the fact that these scientists are performing perhaps some of the most important studies in the world regarding climate etc...and we can't even somehow manage to supply them with an occasional apple.
As if by design in the last 5minutes of our last landing in Antartica, we saw a skua circling and harrassing a chinstrap penguin on the nest. Having barely got the video camera
Dusk in Paradise Bay
Paradise Bay living up to its name. out of my bag we witnessed nature first hand as it swoops in and grabs the baby penguin from the nest. With the penguin hanging in the skua's beak, the skua flies away. David Attenbrough eat your heart out!
We have met some great people on the trip which made the whole experience that much better. Farewell hugs, on the dockside and we're off on our next adventure. We have now landed in Chile and start our trek to the Patagonian mountains of Torres del Paine tomorrow morning. 5 days in a two man tent together. Lovely.
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Stephen
Stunning!
Absolutely fantastic, Ben! I can't even begin to comprehend what kind of experience this may have been. This is something I'd love to do myself, some day. Also, breathtaking photographs! Definitely picture-perfect! How well did your camera deal with the extreme sub-zero temperatures?