Back to Antarctica

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Nov 3 Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego
I think I made a terrible mistake: when I left Nova Scotia it was fall, almost winter. When I came down here it should have been spring, almost summer. So why is it 0 degrees, snowing, 10 cm of snow on the ground and the mountains all around town completely white?! However, this morning there are a few blue patches, and the ship is in so it's not all bad. I'm getting picked up in a few minutes, so this'll be the last message until I get time to open an account on the ship.

Nov 4
Winter came early for you and late for us, but we seem to have left it behind. It's 6 a.m., the sun is already climbing, the temperature
is somewhere between 5 and 10 and there are thousands of petrels, prions, shags and black-browed albatrosses whizzing busily about. When I got up half an hour ago I was dressing at my window and saw two little commerson's dolphins heading for the bow but they were gone by the time I got out there. We are off the northwest tip of the Falklands and will be landing at a place called New Island, which is a nature reserve run by two families. Assuming we get ashore - conditions are good - there will be nesting rockoppers, gentoos and black-broweds and lots of terrestrial birds and rabbits.

Nov 5
I was ashore this morning at New Island on the west side of the Falklands and got talking to Tony Chator, one of the occupants of the island (he and his wife Kim have two delightful tow-headed kids who are home schooled - mostly on the beach as far as I could see today - and they run the place as a nature reserve with another family). Naturally, I asked him about sealers and he said there was a hut ruin on the other side of the island, about 4 miles away, so unlikely I'll get to see it, then we switched to native people
potentially visiting the islands and he mentioned that a visitor three years ago had found a spearhead and had given it to him. So when he saw how excited I was about this he called Kim and I galloped up to their house perched on the hillside surrounded by gorse and Kim dug it out. It is beautiful: triangular, reaching a sharp distal end and having a moderate basal concavity. I told Tony it might be 500-1000 years old but could be older. The island is on the extreme west side of the Falklands, so the nearest landfall if you'd been blown off Patagonia in a little bark boat.

This morning, right after early breakfast, I drove into this beautiful sandy beach in a sheltered harbour with the settlement perched
around the end, then got stuck looking after the boats for an hour (which gave me time to talk to Tony and see the point, so that was fine), then Richard and Kim came back with pax and I had half an hour to zoom across the island for a ten minute visit with the rockhoppers, shags and black-browed albatrosses, then swept the laggards up and drove them back. Very fun morning!

Nov 6
Good morning from sunny Stanley. We're parked right opposite the pier so nice easy landing. I have the Museum duty for the first couple of hours then need to be back for the 10 am shuttle and have another couple of hours after that to visit my favourite supermarket and stock up on choc biscuits. Yesterday afternoon we had a good visit to West Point Island. I drove five runs in then scampered up to the albatross nesting area, downed a quick cuppa then back driving. Perfect! Januscz says we'll have good weather all the way to South Georgia, which would be great.

Nov 7
We had a good day in Stanley - too short, of course, by the time I'd done three stints as driver at 8, 10 and 12, but got the main things done: bank to get some sterling on my Visa, West Store for some chocolate bickies, the museum and a good walk back along the seawall It is a magnificant day today with bright sunshine, blue seas and a cloud of albatrosses and petrels all around. We had one unidentified whale blow yesterday and have had lots of dolphins so far.

Nov 7
not much rocking this trip - we've had an amazing run of good weather and calm seas and are now a few hours away from the Shag Rocks west of S. Georgia. Icebergs on the horizon but not much wind so few boids this morning, but maybe they're all sleeping in like most of our pax (6 a.m.). We're well within the Convergence now, so Hannah is up on the bridge looking for bigger beasties. Should be in South Georgia late tonight and first landing is a new one for me - Elsehul. From then on until we leave, no more lectures but loads of penguins, albatrosses and seals.

Nov 8
We are just coming around the northwestern tip of South Georgia and it's frigid - chunks of ice in the water, the land snow covered and the decks coated with frozen rain. Very beautiful and at least fairly calm, so we should have a good day. First a zodiac cruise in Elsehul, a quiet little bay just round the corner chock full of albatrosses, penguins and seals, and then a clamber up the hill at Prion Island to see the nesting and maybe courting Wandering Albatrosses.
We had something different to do yesterday - the SG government is getting worried about the introduction of alien species so we all had to vacuum all of our outer gear, backpacks, camera bags, etc. Seems excessive, but several of the ones I was supervising had a lot of seeds in their pockets from walking their doggies through the fields at home. There is also a big problem with rats (escaped from visiting sealing, whaling and supply ships), so we have to be sure not to bring any back on the zodiacs, onto the ship, and
then off again at islands that have been systematically trapped free! I'll be sure to check my pockets.
We passed Shag Rocks about 5 yesterday afternoon, just as huge Vs of shags were flying back from their day's fishing. Quite the sight - and smell. Jagged little rocks up to a couple of hundred feet above the water, covered in brown guano and birds perched on little ledges.

Nov 9
We pulled into Elsehul early this morning, the first good shelter on the northwest tip of South Georgia, near where Cook made his landfall at Discovery Bay. A small steel hulled yacht had beat us to it, and the occupants asked anxiously how long we would be there and told us that the fur seals on shore had become increasingly aggressive over the last few days. Kim and I were landed with an armful of bamboo poles with which to mark out a beachhead amongst the hundreds of snarling fur seals and suspicious elephant seals, but we couldn't find a clear path which would not upset the residents too much or frighten the pax to death, so retreated and substituted a zodiac cruise instead.

We were treated to a wide variety of wildlife including the seals, with the young ones from last year and teenagers twisting sinuously around and below the boats and the massive elephants raising their heads off the gravel beach to watch us with their big round eyes glistening in the sunlight. Behind the seals was a row of three iron trypots, a grim reminder of the earlier history of this place when the seals were given a bit less respect, with the elephants being clubbed to death and blubber stuffed into the pots and rendered (tryed) into fine oil for the lamps and machines of Europe and elsewhere.
The air was filled with grey headed, light mantled sooty and black browed albatross as we worked our way around the bay, with many othes nesting on the grass covered slopes. We also saw macaroni, gentoo and king penguins, with the latter bunched together just above the water daring each other to be the first in.

Back on board, we set sail again, heading east along the north coast past a majestic range of mountains towards our next destination, Prion Island. Here we had the supreme privilege of landing at one of the few nesting places of the wandering albatross, a privilege that has to be earned by adhering to strict protocols involving maintaining distance from the birds, restricting numbers of pax allowed on shore at one time and having each group accompanied by a staff guide.

We zodiaced ashore to a narrow beach and found a clear path up a steep, muddy path among the tussac grass and the fur seals, growling at us from their perches on flattened grassy knolls. On the first hillock, a nesting wandering albatross was looking after its chick, which in fact seemed larger than the adult, having been fed a concentrated diet of krill, squid and fish for almost a year. The chick, still covered in thick grey down, is almost ready to take its first flight, which will shortly lead to full confidence in its abilities and the launching off from the home nest on a two year odyssey at sea, before returning to the home island to start sizing up members of the opposite sex as potential mates.

As we arrived near the nest, a good 30 m away from our selected path through the nesting sites, the adult decided to go walkabout and headed off through the tussac, apparently to visit another nest site further up hill, and passing within 10 m of the enraptured group of ten passengers and staff guides. Occasionally, it would stretch out its wings to gain balance on the steep hillside, and we could clearly see that Hannah’s description of a 10-12 foot wingspan was accurate! The bird is massive, quite ungainly on land, but managing to retain a beautiful elegance as it struggled its way up the hill. At sea, these birds are masters of the air, gliding for miles without a wing beat, their shoulder bones locked to fix their wings in place as they take advantage of the uplift from each succeeding wave on the ocean.

Satisfied with this incredible experience, I assisted one of our passengers who’d taken a tumble earlier and needed a bit of help descending the hill, and soon had a boatload to drive back to the ships. All aboard, we set off again, further down the coast towards the centre of South Georgia’s whaling sites, which John and I had described in recent presentations.
Oh oh, there's the 5 a.m. bing bong, so better get dressed for action.

Saturday Nov 10, Grytviken
I'm a bit behind with the news - it's been a hectic pace the last couple of days and more to come and the upstairs computers are down so I have to grab the office one whenever I can for a few minutes. We are headed for Grytviken today, with a couple of pre-hike stops.

We have clear skies above, but low level snow flurries blowing horizontally across the ship, at anchor in Fortuna Bay. This place is well known to those familiar with the Shackleton story - the epic escape by small ship’s boats from their crushed and sunk vessel in the Weddell Sea to landfall on desolate Elephant Island and ultimately, after a harrowing voyage across the South Atlantic, to hit South Georgia and cross its unknown interior to security in the whaling station at Stromness. Our main activity for the morning was to retrace the last 5 km of the trek by Shackleton, Wild and Worsley across a snow-covered pass from Fortuna Bay to Stromness Harbour, but first we had the opportunity for a pre-breakfast, 5 a.m. walk around the head of Fortuna Bay. Some of the keen participants set off with John to view a small herd of reindeer, brought to the island by homesick Norwegian whalers, and a colony of the regal King penguins, while others preferred to wander at leisure along the beach.

We had hoped to be able to explore a nineteenth century sealers’ cave, but its mouth was fiercely guarded by a small fur seal, yet another ironic twist in the sealing story to add to yesterday’s proliferation of seals around the trypots. The beach was littered with adult and young elephant seals, with the 2-3 week old pups, already the size of a large duffle bag, poking away at the mothers for one last feed before they are abandoned to fend for themselves. The adult males, some measuring 5 m in length and weighing as much as 3000 kg, lay placidly on the beach, occasionally flicking flipperfulls of fine gravel over their backs to cool off.

A small contingent of king penguins marched along the surf line, curious about these tall two-legged tourists. Soon, breakfast called and we headed back to the ship for a quick intake of carbohydrates for the big event ahead.

Forty eager passengers joined six staff and another six crew for the retracing of the last part of the Shackleton walk, led by Expedition Leader Kim Crosbie. What an experience! While the Polar Star headed round the coast to rendezvous with us in Stromness Harbour, we climbed steadily up the same snow-covered slope that Shackleton and his two comrades had just over ninety years ago to an elevation of 300 m, then descended the other side into Stromness, with the Polar Star coming into sight and blowing its siren in imitation of the blessed sound of the whaling station’s whistle that signalled to Shackleton that they were nearly home, nearly safe.

We slid down the last snowbank and met up with the other 50 disembarked passengers, who had explored the vicinity of the whaling station (although not allowed within its ramshackle boundaries) seeing more reindeer, king and gentoo penguins, South Georgia pipits, Antarctic terns and seals, and headed back to the ship for lunch and a sail round to Grytviken, the capital of the South Georgia whaling industry from 1904-1964. We came ashore below the cemetery, where dozens of whalers and sailors are buried companionably around Sir Ernest Shackleton, the only one in the graveyard with his plot heading south towards his beloved Antarctic instead of the traditional easterly orientation. John recited some of the great man’s exploits and proposed a toast with Irish whiskey “To the Boss”.

Afterwards, we spread out around the old whaling station nestled at the foot of the mountains, exploring what’s left of the buildings and boilers, where nearly 200,000 whales were processed, enjoyed the quiet atmosphere of the 1913 church, admired the informative displays in the museum and shopped in its giftshop, then straggled back to the ship for a barbecue with the summer residents of Grytviken, government and Heritage Trust employees. As we remained at anchor in the harbour, yet another calm night enveloped us, a tired and happy group well satisfied with the day’s exertions and experiences.

Nov. 12 and 13
Yesterday, November 12, we started off with a 7.30 a.m. landing at Cooper Bay, another place I'd not been to before. It's like St. Andrew's Bay, wide open to the east so apt to be rough, but yesterday was a relative millpond. The beach is tiny and we had to persuade our way through the furries to make a safe landing, though one male fur seal kept sidling up to our line of flags and had to be chivvied back a bit, whereupon he'd lie down and sulk and then try again. The main attraction here is a colony of macaroni penguins on top of a cliff which can only be reached from our beach by cutting and climbing a steep path up a snow bank. Quite an adventure for the less active pax, but they made it.

Kim sent me off after I'd finished driving and had tied up my boat to a patch of kelp (that is so much fun and so safe, a trick learned from the Yamana Indians of Tierra del Fuego when they were finished with their boats for the day, but in my case I was picked up by another boat so did not have to strip and smear myself with grease to swim ashore as they did) up the hill so I could see the macaronis but half way up Hannah called to say that a few nervous passengers needed help on the steepest descent to the
beach so I stayed, helped them down then took them on a cruise round to the beach where the macs land and climb a less steep path, then in amongst kelp coated rocks to see other penguins and shags hauled out and then continued with cruises for the rest of the landing. Lovely morning.

Then we were off to our last stop of the day and the last on South Georgia at Larsen Harbour at the mouth of Drygalski Fiord. We put nine boats in the water, using First Mate Janusz and A.B. Al as spare drivers, and did a cruise up to the end of the harbour to see a tidewater glacier, coming back more slowly, finding a small number of Weddell seals, the northernmost breeding colony of these sleek little animals, as well as a few elephant seals and furs, Antarctic terns, snow petrels and blue-eyed shags. The harbour, named for Carl Anton Larsen, pioneer of the South Georgia whaling industry and no mean sealer either, is actually a 4 km long fiord with several bends through 1000 m high mountains, providing a safe anchorage for yachts and, formerly, sealers and whalers. After we were all aboard again we set off round the south side of the island, passing Cape Disappointment, named by Captain James
Cook when he realized that South Georgia was not part of an Antarctic continent. From here we could see most of the way up the west side of South Georgia, peak after peak of spectacular snow covered mountains offering little shelter and few safe havens for sailors or landing beaches for seals. As we left the mountain range gradually turning rosy pink in the sunset I gave my second lecture, tracing the history of exploration of Antarctica from the late 18th century circumnavigation by Cook to around 1900 and the dawn of the heroic age of exploration.

Now we are off to Elephant Island to pick up the Shackleton story once again, and in the meantime will fill the next two days with lectures, films, whale spotting and, maybe for staff a bit weary after four days comprising seven landings, a 5 km hike and two zodiac cruises, a bit of rest!

Nov 14
For the past two days we have been steaming steadily southeast from the southern tip of South Georgia to our next destination, Elephant Island. The sea and wind have continued to be calm and visibility good, but this morning the wind has died out completely and we have snow flurries.

Without a wind we have few birds around the ship; the great albatrosses, giant petrels, smaller petrels and prions all depend on the wind to create uplift from the waves and allow them to soar rather than having to expend their energy in wingbeats.

We are due off Elephant Island around 5 a.m. tomorrow and hope to be able to go ashore at Cape Wild to see the place where Shackleton and the crew of his ship Endurance came safely to shore after a harrowing journey over the ice and by boat up the west side of the Weddell Sea following the loss of their ship, crushed by the ice and sunk. From the island, Shackleton and five of his men set off across the Scotia Sea in the diminutive ship's boat they christened the James Caird aiming at the 90 mile long sliver of rock that is South Georgia, 800 miles away. Thanks to the navigating skills of Captain Frank Worsley, they made it, landed, crossed the unmapped interior of the island to Stromness whaling station and were able to get a ship to go back to Elephant Island to rescue the rest of the crew, waiting confidently for the return of the Boss.

Our crossing of the same sea in calm waters in the 6000 ton former icebreaker Polar Star makes it difficult to appreciate what a magnificent feat that was. Our days at sea are filled with lectures on sea birds and mammals, historic exploits and stories, films and opportunities to shop for gifts in the ship's shop. Between times the bridge and its wings are filled with passengers with binoculars trained on the sea to find the elusive whales which have provided only tantalizingly brief glimpses so far, and to marvel at the huge fragments of tabular ice broken off from an ice shelf, most likely in the Weddell Sea, that we occasionally pass.

Nov 15

We've just had a wonderful couple of hours doing a zodiac cruise around Point Wild, where Shackleton made his second camp on Elephant Island and from where he set off in the James Caird for South Georgia. The sky was blue, a slight swell, loads of
snow, chinstraps galore, a couple of leopards in the water and a few Weddells hauled out, so a good haul - pax loved it. The swell was a bit too much for landing and the tide was high, so we called off the landing which was only a possibility anyway. Now we're heading for Point Valentine, their first landfall, but the fog has just come in right thick so we may not see it. Then we're off to see B15D, part of a massive chunk of the Ross Ice Shelf that broke off in 2000 and has since gone walkabout half way round the continent. After that, we'll head for the South Shetlands for tomorrow a.m.

Nov 16
Great day yesterday cruising around Shackleton's Point Wild, then passing Cape Valentine where they first landed, then 2.5 hours cruising down the unbelievable 30 mile length of iceberg B15D and a continuing calm crossing over to the Bransfield Strait between the South Shetlands proper and the Peninsula. There, as so often happens, it greyed over, the wind rose, and we were into a rolling motion. This morning we are in close to the islands so more sheltered, but still with a 20 knot wind.

The sky is clearing so the day is looking good and we should be OK for landing at Half Moon Island (chinstraps, Gentoos and
blue-eyed shags, a wooden whaling boat and some Weddell seals) and afternoon in Deception Island caldera (1912-1931 whaling station, site of first aircraft flight in Antarctica 1928, "swim" in the geothermally heated waters). I sat at lunch yesterday with a couple who'd been on my zodiac for our cruise down Larsen Harbour, the last day on SG. I though it was going to be a bit tame, with only glassy water, a few seals and birds and patches of kelp and a glacier and lovely black and white contrasts, but buddy thanked me for such a wonderful ride, noting how hard I'd worked to find things to look at, cutting the engine so we could drift in silence. Nice to be appreciated!

Nov 17
Yesterday was pretty good - early rise for 8 a.m. landing on Half Moon Island, which was hugely covered with snow so looked very beautiful and pristine, with Chinstraps nesting all over the place. We had 25 knots of wind, which made it tricky getting people
ashore dry, but it eased off after everyone was off the ship.

Off to Deception Island, by which time we had a flat calm again (another ship had been blown out in the morning, so our luck was holding). I drove a bunch in then went up to Neptune's Window for an hour to relieve Hannah; had about 15 folks who'd first done a walk up a new route for me - up to a good sized hilltop behind the hangar. The views from the Window were beautiful, everything snow covered, but I was petrified that one of them would go too near the edge and fall off, so I didn't encourage them to linger.

On the way back I got a few nice snaps of the waterboats half buried in snow. Got back after all the swimming frivolities were over (in the hot spring) and the pool backfilled, so that was good. Then we went up the harbour to see the fast ice that had been reported to us and the Captain drove the ship up on to it, breaking off huge chunks but unable to to get a safe platform on which we could land for a quick walk on the ice. At Recap I told the story of Jane's encounter with Princess Anne (ed note: trying to round her and Commander Tim up with the rest of the pax) last season - wish you'd been here to tell it so much better yourself, Jane, but they had a bit of a laugh anyway.

Two more days of landings, two days at sea, and the first long cruise is over and we'll be in Ushuaia for the day.

Nov. 18
Yesterday I found the wildife on another cruise in Paradise Bay - a lovely young female leopard seal and today two Adelie penguins that most people had not seen before, so I've had lots of compliments. However, I did also fall out of my boat yesterday...Danny changed the landing from bow in to sideways on and I hopped out the back, got my foot caught inside the boat and fell in sideways - gave everyone a good laugh but my camera was in my open pocket...thank goodness it was weatherproof and survived. So at recap tonight I'll have to tell my other stories of falling out of a sailboat in Newfoundland and Aunt Barb's baby sailboat at the cottage.

This morning we went ashore at Cuverville Island and had a wonderful time using the zodiacs as icebreakers, finding little leads through the heavy cover of icepans to get pax to and from shore. Having a foot or so height advantage over most other drivers I seemed to have an easier time finding routes through the ice.

We have just had our last day of landings and cruises on the Peninsula and South Shetlands and are now heading out into the Drake for our last two days at sea and into Ushuaia on Wednesday. I am so beat! This has been one of the best trips ever, with permanently good weather, some superb visits including several new places, driving every day, super staff and a great bunch of passengers - the key to any successful cruise.

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Photos

New Island
Gorse windbreak at New Island, Falklands

New Island
Goosey and goslings

New Island
Chator's spear point

Devil's Nose, West Point
Black browed albatross

New Island
Mating shags and rockhopper penguins

Port Lockroy
Gentoo carrying stone to nest (where it will be nicked by the neigbour...)

Prion Island
This wandering albatross uses a 10 foot wingspan to help him up the hill for a neighbourly visit

St Andrews Bay, S Georgia
King penguin chicks

St Andrews Bay, S Georgia
Elephant seals mating in the surf

King penguins
The chicks are always ravenous.

Gold Harbour
Elephant seal pillow

Grytviken
Passengers on Shackleton Walk

Leopard
Leopard seals are called the Southern polar bear. This female is digesting dinner - probably a penguin.

Cape Wild
Pintado (Cape) Petrels follow the ship - graceful and beautiful even at rest

Penguin tracks on deck
Like something out of a Hitchcock movie

Elephant Island
We travelled from here in somewhat more comfort than Shackleton

Deception Island
From Neptune's Window you can see the Antarctic Continent spread before you...on a clear day.

Deception Island
The whaling ships used these small covered boats to bring fresh water out to the ship.