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South Shetland Islands
First views of the Antarctic region, the South Shetlands off the main peninsulaWell what do you know? In the blog for
Robe we posted a picture of a signpost that pointed to the South Pole “Just a tantalising 5700km away…”. “One day…” I wrote, little realising that as near as dammit that day was only less than three months away. For a couple that planned to chase the warm summer weather around the world for 8 months we took a wrong turning somewhere.
Preparation, or lack of We first learned that it was possible to be a tourist in Antarctica whilst in Sydney. The trip was hastily arranged almost solely via the internet with a hitherto unknown travel agent in Punta Arenas that we had googled. We had a vague itinerary for the voyage that might or might not come off depending on the weather. We also had second hand experience from a bus passenger that we would be seasick, no use trying to fight it. Along with the boarding date these bits of information were the sum total of our knowledge of what to expect. We learned the boarding time the evening before departure when we finally got to pick up our boarding passes. What spare time we had in
Who is watching who?
A couple of Gentoo penguins on watch Santiago and Ushuaia was spent stocking up on Antarctic essentials such as waterproofs and warm clothing. Despite dedicating our time so far in South America getting to this eve of departure point, this is the first time when it all became real for us.
Day 1, 10th March - Boarding For what was potentially going to be the most rewarding experience of our trip so far the day started inauspiciously with a visit to the launderette, the bus journeys to this point having precipitated a laundry crisis. Having resolved this there was little else to do but camp out at the Irish bar until it came time to board. Attempts to drown our increasing nerves with alcohol turned out to be as futile as fighting seasickness was apparently to be. We boarded the M/S Explorer, affectionately known as the Little Red Ship, at 16:00. Our fellow passengers demonstrated one of the flaws in our preparations as they clanked aboard carrying bags laden with alcohol. We were to spend the trip paying for a glass of wine what they had paid for bottles. We introduced ourselves to our cabin, a one up one down bunk arrangement disturbingly close to
Crabeating(?) Seal
The penguin knows this is not a penguin eating seal the front of the vessel. This is the bit that is most mobile in a heavy swell. If the ship had a cat it would have been mightily concerned. With little to entertain us there we set up what was pretty much to be our daytime camp in the smoking area on the pool deck of the ship. I hasten to add that there was not much call for a pool on this trip and this facility was put to alternative use as a rubbish pit for the duration. Our 18:00 departure was delayed whilst we waited for the last of the passengers to arrive, victims of an airline strike frantically trying to find flights out of Buenos Aires.
Day 2 - Beagle Channel and Drake Passage With all passengers finally aboard (though in some cases minus baggage which was not as successful as the owner in circumventing the airline strike) we finally set sail at midnight, thus being denied views of the Beagle Channel that was the start of our voyage. By morning we were well into the dreaded Drake Passage, the roughest stretch of water in the world. The weather was actually freakishly calm, but in
South Shetland Sunset
The end of the first day in Antarctica from Aitcho the Drake these things are relative and the ship pitched around quite dramatically, making the simple act of walking from one end of the ship to the other something of an adventure in itself. The sole topic of conversation amongst the passengers this day seemed to be seasickness and I’m sure that more than one person talked themselves into being ill. Fortunately C and I were not, though I was quick to avail myself of seasickness pills and at one point during dinner came perilously close to a second viewing of the evening meal.
Day 3 - South Shetlands and Aitcho Islands For the more susceptible the majority of the day was spent with head in bag as we continued to negotiate the torturous swell of the Drake. Our view from the smoking deck was of ‘gently’ rolling seas, gliding seabirds, enthusiastic ornithologists and the odd passenger coughing into a bag. We were mildly impressed with albatross sightings as they glided only just above the waves. We became more impressed when C learned that they had huge 3 metre wingspans, something that we did not initially perceive due to a trick of perspective and the distances we were
Gerlache Strait
Morning on day 4 and we are getting into the heart of the peninsula now. seeing them at. She had learned this from one of the many lectures laid on by an impressive array of staff on board, including an ornithologist, geologist, historian and marine mammal expert. Whilst C regarded these lectures as a welcome break from whole days at sea I generally contented myself to remaining fixed to our spot on the smoking deck, fixating hard on the horizon and never too far from a bag.
In the afternoon we sighted land as the ice covered mountains of the South Shetland Islands rose out of the sea some distance from the continent itself, preceded by a huge tabular ice berg. Despite our delayed departure the ‘calm’ crossing of the Drake allowed us to make up time and we were able to fit in a landing on one of the Aitcho Islands, part of the South Shetlands group. Fitted out with some rather funky wellies on loan from the ship we were loaded into Zodiak dinghies and ferried in groups of 10 to the shore, to be greeted on landing by penguin colonies, seals and seabirds. We had been briefed to stay at least 5 metres from any animal, a task made difficult by
Glacial
Ice flows just about, relatively speaking, to fall into history. the sheer numbers of penguins. Whilst we all dutifully kept to this rule, the penguins had not been suitably briefed. They are comical inquisitive little animals and anyone standing still long enough would be rewarded with a penguin waddling by or even up close to have a look at the strange monkey creatures. I believe the staff were doubly entertained, having both comical penguin and tourist antics to amuse them. I’m not sure how long we spent here but we left as the sun was setting below the mountains.
Day 4 Pt 1 - Gerlache Strait Now that we were out of the Drake passage the more sheltered waters allowed us all to lay aside our thoughts of seasickness. Although this meant losing the main topic of conversation of the last couple of days, there was plenty around us to fill in the void. As we slept the ship had entered the Gerlache Strait; islands to the right of us, continent to the left. The scenery is stunning. Blue skies start to disappear under gathering low cloud, some of which only adds to the splendour as it wisps below the peaks. The rock visible in some places is
Ice Walls
Walls off ice about to drop into the sea, with a predecessor collapse floating in the foreground. Just to the left of the berg is the blow of a whale the only proof of a land mostly hidden under layers of ice accumulated over millennia. As it creeps imperceptibly towards the waters edge the ice fractures into great blocks apparently queuing, awaiting turns to fall finally as bergs into the water. At the waters edge sheer ice cliffs show where great lumps of ice have fallen and it is here that we can see where the huge weight caused by thousands of years of compaction have given the ice a blue tinge. Floating all around us in the water is evidence of the journey from land to sea as great bergs float by, surreal shapes in a sea of smaller chunks of ice. Every now and then a small flat berg would float by, temporary home to seals. At one point the shout went up, “whales!”, and everyone rushes to the relevant side of the ship to try and catch a glimpse. You can’t imagine this. You can’t even look at the pictures and see this. You have to be there.
Whoaa! Lapsed into some travel writing there! Back to the plot.
Day 4 Pt 2 - Danco Island and the Continent The first landing of the
Ice Berg
Going to run out of ideas for these descriptions soon. day was on Danco Island, only just off the continent proper. This was another chance to mix it with what would become the familiar crowd of penguins as well as a few basking fur seals. The more foolhardy amongst us trekked ourselves to the verge of cardiac arrest to get to the top of a small peak and admire a 360 panorama of the area. The downright suicidal wandered around the snow fields at the top until the resident staff member called them back. He did this by drawing attention to the crevices that marked the snow fields on the peaks across the bay and which surely would have been found on this peak if wandering were left unchecked. We stuck to the peak. It was here that we first heard the booms of ice sounding like distant thunder as it shifted and cracked on the land across the bay, though scan as hard as we could we never saw any new bergs falling into the bay. The return trip in the Zodiak detoured via a small berg that was home to a trio of crab eating seals, close to another small blue tinged berg. The latter started to collapse
The Great White
White berg, white ice, white cloud, grey skies immediately behind me as we snapped away at the former, which caused me at least some consternation. I denied all responsibility for this act of berg destruction, citing global warming as the culprit. Whilst selecting pictures for this part of the blog I came across some stunning shots that were new to me. Apparently as we sailed on to our next destination for the day I had, for some reason, retreated to the cabin. C seized upon this opportunity to take some of the best pictures of the trip, which I post here as evidence that we should never argue over who gets to hold the camera again.
Our final landing of the day is at Neko Harbour on the continent itself. As we were in different Zodiak groups it turned out to be my turn to land first and as previously agreed I got to take the camera with me. I was able to take a handful of shots before I snapped C coming ashore, bagging her seventh and final continent on the planet in the process (I still need Africa for the set). The camera was obviously fully aware of this momentous point in time and shortly
Seals on a berg
A group of seals conducting their own, more ecologically sound, tour of the Gerlache Strait. thereafter the batteries promptly expired. Stuffing the thing between layers 5 and 6 of my clothing revived them enough to capture a couple of seals frolicking just before we left and we spent the intervening time sat on a rock at the waters edge trying to fully take in just where it is that we are sat.
As we sat down to the usual first class dinner that evening the ship sailed on. It continued to sail on as we sailed our own way through a number of generously sized glasses of wine. Try as I might I can not attribute our unsteady journey to the cabin later that night to the seas, which being sheltered remained flat calm. I think that this was the time when we spent the best part of the night listening to some mighty solid objects crashing against the hull and wondering just how ice hardened the ship was.
Day 5 - Iceberg Alley, Snowfights, Bird Strikes, History and Vodka An early rise to admire the beauty that is the Lemaire Channel, more colloquially known as iceberg alley. This is a very narrow passage between island and the continent and we were
Whale fin
Obviously promised the most scenic views on earth. A bold claim which went largely unverified as the weather finally settled in upon us. The sharply rising land either side of the ship quickly disappeared into the clouds and the mist gave the by now usual whiteout a grey palour. It was still very majestic though, in an eerie Apocolypse Now on Ice kind of way.
The ship was constructed with a hardened hull designed to allow it to move through ice strewn waters with impunity. As long as the captain steered around the bergs we were pretty safe. Obviously this was too easy for the staff so this morning we take to the flimsy non-ice hardened Zodiaks and spend an hour picking our way through the ice. It was also snowing which not only added to the ambience but inevitably generated inter-dinghy snow fights and, before long, numb fingers. I had two pairs of gloves on and by the time we got back I was beginning to suspect frost bite. How the chap in our dinghy managed to remain gloveless without becoming fingerless I have no idea. For an increasingly cold hour we puttered around and between icebergs, getting up
A watched berg never falls
We spent a good while anchored at Danco Island waiting for this fragile looking berg to break up, but it never did. close and personal with both them and the seals that lounged upon them. We appeared to take the long way round the berg fields to get back to the ship and I began to suspect that the rest of the cruise was indeed to be conducted solely by dinghy. I imagine that the culinary standards would have slipped a little. Fortunately, not least for the person aboard who ‘didn’t go’ before we left, we did eventually make it back. She was remarkably quick hopping from dinghy to boarding ramp hung down the side of the ship, but by then I guess she was pretty well motivated.
With all Zodiaks recovered, on we cruise, out of ice berg alley yet still with plenty of impossibly shaped, towering bergs to entertain us. We were further kept amused trying to take pictures of Skuas in flight just off the smoking deck. The art with trying to photo moving objects like these is to keep tracking the subject through the view finder after you’ve pressed the shutter release. The idea is that the subject remains framed as the camera goes through a laborious process of auto focus before it actually taking the picture.
Danco Island
Another view off the stern whilst anchored at Danco. Not a simple task as the many shots of empty sky and random bird parts we have will testify. Occasionally we’d hit lucky. At one point I thought I had the zoomed in close up shot to beat all shots, the camera showing me the result just after it had taken the picture; a huge looking bird filling the frame. What I had forgotten, though, was that full zoom makes acquiring the target in these situations impossible and the shot wasn’t in fact zoomed at all. The bird really was flapping wildly just a few feet from my head. Now that I wasn’t watching the drama through the false reality of a viewfinder I did a little flapping of my own and beat a hasty retreat.
Later in the day we piled into the Zodiaks and made yet another landing, this time at the former British research station of Farraday where the hole in the ozone layer was first discovered. These days it’s a Ukrainian station now known as Verdansky, where they continue research into the ozone. We followed our Ukrainian scientist guide from room to room like a flock of penguins. For all we understood of his heavily
Danco Seal
Fur(?) seal showing a certain nonchalence for the tourists. accented English we might as well have been. There was a lot of very technical looking machinery and those foolhardy enough to ask questions quickly learned not to. My favourite was the guy who, pointing to some objects on a shelf, asked ‘what are these for?’ and was treated to an increasingly technical and potentially lengthy (not to mention lethal) explanation of the physics of spectrometry and light refraction (or something like that, I faded out pretty early on). Easy to mock I suppose but the guy was a scientist, speaking better English than any of us ever would Ukrainian, to a bunch of tourists, and he showed us round what would be his home for the next year, so top marks to him and excellent hospitality. Besides which, they had a bar. We did our own research on the effects that down-in-one vodka of dubious origin has on the human body at polar latitudes. I came closer to barfing than I ever did, before or after, on the ship.
The former British station was itself a former British base, constructed during the latter years of World War II to watch out for Germans prowling the area for oil.
The Ship
Whilst we check his home, he´s checking ours out. The Brits deployed their full creative powers and named the place Base F (I think, although it might have come higher up the alphabet). A thin walled wooden hut just across the water from Verdansky and now maintained as an historic artefact demonstrated that what the Brits of the time lacked in imagination they made up for in brass balls (and very cold ones at that).
This was the furthest south we travelled, 65 degrees and 15 minutes south. We sailed a short distance north, back through a Lemaire Channel that was a good deal better illuminated this time, at least until the sun set, and anchored for the night. As I recall the evening was spent out on the smoking deck trying to dilute the effects of homemade vodka by mixing it with wine, but I don’t recall all that much. What does stick out in my memory is the lengthy rumbling of new ice bergs being born not all that distant but unseen in the dark.
Day 6 - The Brits, Neumayer and Circling the Zodiaks Today we get a little taste of home at Port Lockroy, which is to say that we got to
Gathering clouds
The staff eyed this approaching weather with concern before hussling us off Danco freeze our butts off on a grey day in biting cold winds. This is a former British base now maintained as an historic monument, museum, souvenir shop and post office. It even has its own resident staff for 4 months every year which leads me to suspect that the Antarctic tourism industry is not quite as exclusive as we first thought. Being pretty much the end of the season the souvenir shop had seen better days and was pretty threadbare though C did manage to bag one of the last T-shirts available. A nearby island held our interest briefly for the whale skeletons that lay on the beach but the cold wind had us heading for the ship before our own bones became part of the scenery.
From Port Lockroy we sailed up the Neumayer Channel, wider than the Lemaire but for me far more breathtaking. After days of overcast the sun began to peek out between clouds and, lighting up the ice, lent the scenery a contrast that raised it up a little from white out conditions. Despite the many opportunities for ice photography over the last few days we still snapped away like lunatics. It was round
Three seals and a boat
On the return journey from Danco about this point that the tally of pictures for the Antarctic trip started to exceed the number taken in our travels so far, a fact that will I’m sure be causing some consternation amongst our families when the time comes for our return.
Returning to the warmth of the ship we cruised onto Foyn Harbour in Wilhelmina Bay and took once again to the Zodiaks in search of whales. It was only mildly disturbing to watch the ship cruise on without us. With 10 Zodiaks in the water we descended en masse on a small berg, home to a couple of large evil looking Leopard seals. Apparently they displayed the behaviour of seals under threat and stuck to the shallow waters of the partially submerged berg. With 100 odd people gazing on who could blame them? After much mutual eyeing up between humans and seals the Zodiaks started to drift off in search of whales, until eventually we were the last boat still hanging around. It was around this point the seals apparently started to feel less threatened, at one stage swimming under our boat. Now feeling a little threatened ourselves we made our excuses and, opting not to
chase after the rest of the Zodiak armada, headed off in the opposite direction to the others. Our spirit of independence was rewarded when, having motored towards a couple of whales we had spotted, a pair of Minke whales started to circle us at close range. The skipper expressed some sympathy for Minke whale experts on the basis that they are very hard to picture, being unpredictable as to where they will surface. Five minutes and a camera full of pictures of empty sea later and I could see her point. Eventually they disappeared and the mini cruise concluded with a visit to an altogether less picturesque wreck of an old whaling ship before we motored off to catch up with our own ship which had, I was pleased to see, not strayed too far. Our elation at the rare close up views of the Minke whales was tempered a little by news from a couple of the other boats that they had had a very close encounter with a hump back whale. At least we were spared the fate of one boat which had had a whale free trip.
Day 7 - Madness and Fatigue During the
Berg Factory
Would be bergs queue up on the coast of the continent itself previous evening’s recap briefing we were advised to rise early to view the scenes as we passed through the narrow collapsed section of a volcano and into the waters of the crater itself. On subsequent questioning by one bight spark it was admitted that this was the only way in and out of the crater, and we elected to take in the views on the return journey. In fact, I was exhausted and my troublesome tooth was starting to give me real gip, so I elected to remain with the ship whilst just about everyone else landed on the shores of the crater. To be more precise, I remained in bed on the ship. C, on the other hand, showed her bold spirit to the last. Not only did she join the shore party but she was one of what I can only think of as the lunatics who donned swimming cozzie and took a dip in a pit dug on the beach. It seems that the volcano is still a tad hot and the water exposed by the pit is warm, though having seen the photos I am not convinced that it was all that warm. I greeted C
Floating Home
The Little Red Ship on her return to the ship, but for some reason she had an urgent appointment with a warm shower and all I saw was a blur heading rapidly back to the cabin.
Our last stop for the day was Livingstone Island, part of the South Shetlands again. It was obvious that we were close to the dreaded Drake again, and those brave souls that joined the landing party were soaked by icy seas as the Zodiaks bounced their way through the chop. We elected to remain in the warm and dry confines of the ship.
Day 8 - Return to the Drake Having spent the last week viewing stunning scenery and watching strange animals, conversation once more returns to the less an altogether less pleasant subject as we start to revise people’s favoured methods of combating seasickness. Having ‘enjoyed’ a freakishly calm crossing on the way down no-one is expecting any mercy and watching the bows disappear under a surging mass of water does nothing to ease our concerns. As I stare at this drama next to the bridge the officer on watch advises that it should not actually be too rough then immediately proceeds to ruin
Cute...
...but pooey it by confidently declaring that I’m still going to be sick. Not surprisingly, meal times during the two day crossing are a little under subscribed and there are noticeably fewer people out and about for what actually turned out to be yet another relatively gentle crossing. Whilst my own seasickness cure was predicated on pills and watching the horizon, I did get to spend a worrying few minutes confined to the Doctor’s cabin whilst he checked out the abscess that was lending my face hamster like qualities. Armed with anti-inflammatories and anti-biotics I was however soon able to take up my station back on the smoking deck.
Day 9 - Cape Horn and Ushuaia Early risers will have been able to witness views of Cape Horn as we rounded it. I didn’t, though I did see the pictures that C took. I think that most people were glad to once again be in calm sheltered waters and before long we were able to view the land of Tierra del Fuego as we sailed back up the Beagle Channel. We docked back at Ushuaia in the afternoon and the cruise went out with a kind of whimper as, too
Iceberg alley
From the Zodiak on the snow cruise exhausted to go into town, we rattled around an empty ship that evening, taking advantage of ‘free’ accommodation before being booted off after breakfast the following day.
All in all an unmissable experience, well worth the considerable amount of money we paid for it. We took more photos in those nine days than we did since leaving home and I don’t think the memories will ever leave us, unlike one of my teeth which, much like the Bismarck, has an appointment with the River Plate, but that is another story.
Postscript The tooth missed its appointment in South America, but eventually received an aquatic burial in Lake Powell, Arizona, USA. Of possibly greater interest is the similar fate that
befell the ship less than 2 years after we disembarked, though its final resting place is a good deal further south, in deeper and altogether colder waters.
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Karine
non-member comment
WOW
Thats really all I can say!! Hope your tooth is better and WOW!!!!