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Published: February 16th 2016
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“When the greatest of England’s bold voyagers perished,
‘Twas the ear of a savage that heard his last groans
And far from the land where his memory is cherished
On a tropical island are scattered his bones.” George Airy, Dolcoath.
Thank you to the Explorers of Yesteryear Some colleagues and I shared a bottle of red wine, a nice plate of cheese and a box of chocolates. We are a multi-national expedition team, but we all share the same passion for the Polar Regions, and as the sun dipped behind the mighty icecap of the Tabarin Peninsula at Antarctica’s northern extreme, we raised a glass to the explorers of yesteryear. These early explorers who came down here with no charts or communication were among the last of the true explorers in the world. Most places had been explored and mapped to some degree by the late 1800s, but Antarctica eluded us at that point in time. These adventurous souls risked life and limb to see what was down here. This decade, one hundred years ago, Antarctica was visited by Robert Scott, Roald Amundsen, Ernest Shackleton, Douglas Mawson, and many more… They all loved this place… It’s
amazing, and we’ve just had another great voyage down to the frozen part at the bottom of the world…
Thanks gentlemen.
Crabbies and a Photographer I had the pleasure of spending time in a Zodiac with only one client, a photographer from Japan. He was interested in taking pictures of seals, and so the two of us went out to explore and search for these flippered mammals that frequent the Antarctic waters. We spent a lot of time in certain locations with the Zodiac manoeuvered snuggly up against ice floes watching and patiently waiting for the generally lethargic seals to move. Our patience was rewarded with some excellent up close and personal viewing of primarily crabeater seals. The crabeaters seem to be very abundant this season, we’ve had no trouble finding them. Contrary to their name, the crabeaters eat mainly krill (like almost everything in the Antarctic) and not crabs. We also had some great leopard seals and a few Weddell seals too as we meandered through the maze of sea ice.
Charcot’s PP Jean-Baptiste Charcot was a French explorer who over wintered twice on the Antarctic Pen insula area, once in Port Charcot (which
he named after his father as he was too proud to name it after himself), and once in Port Circumcision on Petermann Island. At Port Circumcision he etched the letters ‘PP’ and a horizontal line into the granite to mark the low tide, which is now higher than the low tide mark due to isostatic rebound or post glacial uplift (in brief these processes are the rising of bedrock after a huge weight of ice has been removed.) The ‘PP’ was the name of his ship, Pourquois Pas (Why Not)…
Why not indeed - it’s not every day you get to see a PP…
The Usual Critters and Things Of course, the Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie chicks are growing up fast while the ever-hungry skuas are taking these chicks to feed chicks of their own. The Antarctic terns are as grumpy as ever as they attack anything that moves in the vicinity! The whales are feeding on the masses of krill as the sea ice drifts around causing a navigational headache for the bridge officers. The long drawn out sunsets are stunning and the seals remain indifferent (for the most part).
Dave.
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iris
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thankfull
I'm soooo thankfull reading your poetry an seeing your pictures, even though we never will be able to see them in reality. Thanks Dave (and Theresa)