WEATHER: Cold and snowing 1C at 8.30 to the sun peeking through at 11.30am
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Just being able to meander up and down the black volcanic beach
For scientific leadership, give me Scott, for swift and efficient travel give me Amundsen. But when you are in a hopeless situation, when you are seeing no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.
Sir Raymond Priestley – a member of the 1907-09 Nimrod Expedition
Follow our journey at http://www.gadventures.com/marine/triplog-login/ where you can find our Daily Expedition Reports and other documents from our voyage. It also maps our itinerary and stops along the way, so you may find this of interest. You will need the following to get in:
Username: antarctica111107
Password: expedition
We had an early morning wake-up call this morning at 6.15. We were going to be entering through a narrow channel called Neptune’s Bellow, where the ship has to take extreme care as the opening of the caldera is 548m at its thinnest point. Many a ship has sunk going through this exact passage and as recently as last year a cruise ship was blown by strong winds on a rock. Be careful Captain! So it was advised to come up on deck to see us entering, so at 6.30am in 1C temperatures we watched as we passed though, seeing a few Chinstraps on the volcanic cliffs and some Turns nests as we cruised the 10 minutes into Port Fosters. It was then back downstairs for a shower and then breakfast before our zodiac calls starting at 8.30am.
Deception Island was going to be a highlight for me today. After the briefing last night, it holds a lot of historical significance and it sounded like it is literally littered with evidence from its past. The Island is an active volcano in the South Shetland Islands off the coast off the Antarctica Peninsular. It has a distinctive horse shoe shape with a large flooded caldera opening to the sea through a narrow channel at Neptune’s Bellows, forming a natural sheltered harbour. It is one of the only places in the world where vessels can sail directly into the center of an active volcano. The island was named by early sealers who were deceived by the promise of a safe haven but found the entrance extremely hazardous to the harbour as the entrance is as narrow as 548m. The island has a unique landscape with barren volcanic slopes and craters, ash layered glaciers, steaming warm springs and it is the only geothermal lagoon in Antarctica. The island is in fact the rim of an old volcano. The blast that blew off the top of the mountain and left the subsequent caldera happened about 10,000 years ago. After the chamber collapsed it left a deep basin that has since been flooded by sea water. Port Foster, as this basin is now known is about 160m deep. It is a major historical location that preserves the most significant whaling remains in Antarctica.
How cool does it sound already!
Located inside the caldera is Port Foster and Whalers Bay and this was to be our landing site this morning. The weather didn’t look that inviting this morning and with an extra special announcement that it was cold and to really rug up, I donned on my second pair of gloves for the first time and I also added my Merino wool scarf to my neck gator. Otherwise I stuck to my ‘landing’ outfit of the usual 3 bottoms and 3 tops and a jacket. We are group 2 again today, and for whatever reason as soon as we hear the call for our group to head to the mudroom we always seem to be on the second last to last zodiac. It really doesn’t make much difference but we always seem to be the last ones off the ship. As we bordered the zodiacs the snow was coming down hard and steady. I find snow frustrating as when you take pictures it sticks to your camera lens, annoying…….
When we first arrived there were 2 directions you could take. To the left was the historical part of the bay and to the right was the natural beauty of the island. As we were one of the last groups off the ship, again, we were directed to go left first and wander the remnants of the historical side of the island.
Here there was the Norwegian Hektor whaling station, which operated from 1912 through to 1931. It closed in 1931 due to the slump in whale oil prices. There were a lot of relics and abandoned equipment left after this part of the islands history which is now all rusted up and strewn haphazardly all over the harbour. The main buildings still standing today are the rusty oil tanks that stand 30m high and the remains of the boilers and some houses and a floating dry dock.
Also in the same vicinity are the building shells from British Base B, which was built in 1944 as part of the secret war time Operation Tabarin which was designed to keep an eye on any enemy activity. Besides constructing some of their own buildings they also moved into some of the old whaling buildings.
The main activities carried out of Base B were meteorology and the operation of an air facility to support survey work and the other British Bases in the Antarctic Peninsula. A new accommodation block and laboratory was built in 1965.
In 1961 they also constructed an aircraft hangar. It was from here on the 16th November 1928; Sir Hubert Wilkins flew on his first Antarctic flight, becoming the first powered flight over Antarctica. The shell of the building can still be found and it is still in good condition, but was 45% filled with snow that had been blown in through the 2 doors over winter. We were told not to enter any of the buildings for obvious safety concerns, but it was pretty cool to see. Apparently you can see the actual plane to the side of the hanger, but we didn’t see it, so it may have been still covered with snow.
The base was continuously occupied from 1944 to December 1967 when it was evacuated because of a volcanic eruption. It reopened a year later in December 1968, but finally had to be closed in February 1969 following another eruption. This resulted in a mud flow destroying most of the buildings, the runway and also buried the whaler’s cemetery, which held 35 graves and a memorial to ten men who died at sea. There is now a new memorial in their honor where the graves used to be, but we were unable to walk there due to the nesting Turns and we didn’t want to disturb their site.
Nine species of birds breed on Deception Island, including more than 140,000 pairs of Chinstrap penguins. The inner calm waters of the harbour are not popular with penguins and this explains why we only saw 3 Gentoo penguins and 3 Chinstraps penguins the whole 3 hours that we were there. We didn’t see any evidence of the 140,000 pairs….. Hiding maybe? They also nest on the cliffs of the caldera, so that’s another reason we didn’t see many….
Deception Island is also home to 18 species of plants, mosses, liverworts and lichens, which are found nowhere else in Antarctica. This was clearly seen on the high cliffs that faced the harbour turning the black volcanic cliffs into shades of green and red and as we were walking along the beach we saw for the first time what looked like kelp or seaweed on the beach. The first real plant matter we have seen all trip in the South.
It was cool to see heading back to the landing site the steam. The geothermal heated fresh water runs off the beach and mixes with the cold water of the sea. You could smell the sulphur, like any normal hot pool, but it was strange to see steam and the smell here. Like it was the last thing you would expect to find in Antarctica, a thermal pool. This was also the place if people wanted to do a polar plunge, firstly because of the access and also if you were lucky enough to get into one of these thermal streams the going in would be less painful, but you still have to come out and at 1C that was the killer for me. “Bernie, are you doing the polar plunge. No way Jose……..” As it turned out there were 50 people out of 101 people that did it, so it is a pretty impressive statistic. Nearly 50%. I bet you could wager money that the 50% that did plunge were under 30 years old. Betcha……
Even though fur seals and Weddell seals can be found lounging on the beaches, they do not breed anywhere on the island. We saw our first Weddell seal heading up to the hanger, he was beached not far from where we were walking and this was the first time we have seen a seal close up. We would have been maybe 8m away from him and he didn’t move an inch the whole time we were there. I didn’t realize they were such lazy animals. But it was great to finally get some photos of a seal. I didn’t realize it would be this hard to see them this time of year. But I got some ‘money shots’ and he was super cute…well for a seal. We also saw 2 more at the other end of the beach and they were a lot more active scratching themselves with their fins and lifting up their heads and opening their eyes. They really super cute, even if they look like big fat sausages lying on the beach. I got some awesome close up shots of these fascinating animals. Funny how when I was in Namibia when I saw 40,000 seals, it wasn’t as special as seeing their Antarctic brothers.
The beach itself is approximately 100m wide before it meets the steep cliffs of the caldera wall. Made up of volcanic rocks, ash and cinder it is a black beach which contrasts with the freshly fallen snow and ice that had washed up on the beach. From the landing site it is a 15 minute walk up to Neptune’s Window on the caldera wall. From this vantage point after climbing a fairly steep hill you are rewarded with views over Port Foster and the ship and on the other side the Bransfield Strait. We were lucky it had recently snowed as it gave out photos additional colour and depth. As we walked along the beach you could see scattered around whale bones and more remnants of the whaling industry. The weather started to clear, well it stopped snowing and the clouds lifted so it was a great way to spend nearly 3 hours at this landing site. As much as we love out Gentoo penguins it was great to see a few (well 3) Chinstraps, 3 Weddell seals and some history into the throw made a nice change. I can see why this is the most visited place in Antarctica, where over 10,000 tourists visit each year.
The last zodiac was due to leave at 11.30am. We got on ours at 11.20am, after seeing 4 crazy people do their polar plunge before heading back to the ship. Their bodies were red from the cold after getting out! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I was just happy to be a videographer for Richard as he went in. Apparently there were 2 staff left on the beach and they did a nudie plunge after we had all left.
As we board the ship, routine dictates that we clean our boots on the brush stand, which is basically 3 broom heads, to scrape all the rocks and bits from our boots, wash them off under a hose. We then pass our ship card to Ben, who swipes us back onto the ship and then today the lovely Alessandra was there with an urn of hot chocolate, whipped cream in a bowl and your choice of 5 liqueurs to add into the hot chocolate as we came back in. What a pleasant surprise and it was delicious. I have never had a hot chocolate with Bailey’s in it before and the cream on top was divine. I could get used to that in winter for sure. Mental note to take that tip home with me!
I have been saving my pictures to my eternal hard drive each night. Should my camera fall into the ‘drink’ on the zodiac excursions then I don’t lose all my Antarctica pictures. I thought I would check at where my photo count was for the whole trip to date. So I have taken 31,168 pictures in 8 months. Now I know it sounds a lot. But let’s work it out. I have actually been away from home now for 233 days to be exact, so work it backwards I am taking approximately 133.76 photos a day. Now that doesn’t seem so bad right!? They are all keepers as well I might add. That is after all the crud has been deleted. I always say it is best to take too many than not enough photos and I am living to that philosophy well and truly.
So after lunch and me jumping on the internet for 15 minutes, we had free time till our expected arrival into Half Moon Island at around 3.30pm. Poor Jules has been under the weather for days now, so she spends her time sleeping and trying to recharge her batteries. I also come back to the cabin and I get my blog done. I am going to miss being able to type it up as I go along during the day, but I think they may be the most thorough entries I have done the whole trip!!
The announcement came over at 3pm for the first groups to the mudroom, followed by us and we had our feet on Half Moon Island at 3.50pm. We were given 3 hours here, so it was nice we didn’t have to rush around knowing it was a fairly small island and we could take our time. The weather had gone a bit foggy and cloudy, but it seemed to lift a little after we had arrived. It certainly wasn’t a sunny day like yesterday, but at least the current was good and there was no wind to speak of, so this we should just be thankful for and that we got a landing in.
Half Moon Island lies in the entrance to Moon Bay, between Livingston and Greenwich Islands. The 2km long island is crescent-shaped (hence the name) and home to 3,300 breeding pairs of Chinstrap penguins. Antarctic terns, skuas, kelp gulls and blue eyed shags also breed at this site. There are only 2 man-made things on the island. An Argentinian station that is manned during summer with approximately 20 staff and an old wooden boat that was still 90% covered in snow near the landing site.
So once we had landed we headed to the southern part of the small island where most of the breeding Chinstrap penguins were and I rekon we watched these furry little creatures for around 40 minutes. There was one couple we watched as the male penguin went back and forth with stones for the nest and watching the female’s response was hilarious. We were so close to the rookery that the penguins were passing within a meter of us and they just didn’t care. They just kept doing what they had to do. They are just the cutest animals. You could see penguins stealing stones from other nests, penguins fighting, penguins sleeping, penguins mating, penguins singing and others just standing. It was a hive of activity!!!!! This was also where we saw out first Macaroni Penguin. There was just the one guy, and he was hiding in amongst the Chinstraps, but I managed to get a few photos of this elusive penguin. He is the groovy looking one with the punky hairdo.
We also passed a few Weddell seals on our journey and they were just massive. Once again not doing much, but Ozi was explaining that they have probably just been swimming for food and besides being full from eating they are also tired as they use something special in their system to allow them to dive in deep water and this also takes their steam out of them. Very scientific rendition I know, I think it is called layman terms!!! We headed down to the beach which was very pebbly, rocky and very large rocks. There was a massive piece of ice that looked a little like a chair, so we were all getting out photos taken in the thing and then Jules and I went a little further afield along the beach. But you need to look carefully as it is hard to differentiate seals from rocks on the beach as we can attest to. Julie and I were flitting around the rocks and the large chunks of ice on the pebble beach when some-one called out to us to let us know only 5m away was a massive 2m long seal sitting on one of the rocks. We so didn’t see him there and could of easily have stood on him had we gone rock hopping further along! Close call I can tell you!
So after 2 hours on the island we had had enough and headed back to the landing site for our ride home to the ship. Julie went in the first Zodiac and I waited 15 minutes for the next one to leave. In the mean time I watched the kayak boats get put into another zodiac and get taken back to the ship. These guys are amazing and I have said before deserve a medal for what they do. So they kayak for an hour or so and then paddle to the landing site. They get time on the islands as well and their kayaks hitch a ride back to the ship. So they don’t miss out on anything which I think is pretty important.
Tonight’s dinner is a black and white attire evening in recognition to our little furry penguin friends that we have been seeing all week. They were pushing the ‘be creative’ point all afternoon, so when dinner arrived there were some pretty crazy black and white combinations, so kudos to them for getting in the spirit. I had ‘normal’ black and white clothes so I wore the requirement I just didn’t go crazy using bed sheets, laundry bags and cut out penguins which looked awesome by the way. The winner got a bottle of champagne with her penguin cutout collar and penguin foot marks on her back, which is the way penguins mate and they only way that you can tell which penguin is male or female. Footprints on the back means they are female…….
So at midnight we lifted anchor and headed back into the Bransfield Strait steaming towards King George Island and our last day tomorrow in Antarctica before heading back into the Drake Passage for 2 days. Hopefully pond days, crossing back to Argentina and Ushuaia. Keep your fingers crossed for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment