Last night we were provided a lecture about whaling in preparation for today's first excursion to Deception Island and "Whaler's Bay." It's home to an abandoned "whale processing center" where tens of thousands of whales were butchered for their parts (and oil, of course). Not a subject or a location that appeals to me, but I tried to make the best of it. There was a spooky fog out, which made things slightly more interesting than it would have otherwise been to me.
"Deception Island" is actually the caldera of an extinct volcano. You enter the caldera by passing through a narrow channel of high winds which sailors have named "Neptune's Bellows."
You can kinda see how insane it is to navigate inside the caldera by looking at this satellite image I grabbed from Bing Maps...
©2017 Bing Maps / Earthstar Geographics
But pass through we did, at which time we found ourselves approaching Whaler's Bay...
The ruins of this tragic site are still around...
It wasn't just the past, death was everywhere in the present too...
Far more interesting to me than the remnants of death was some penguins on the shore...
There was also a bird that was looking most perturbed...
And... our progress so far today...
©2017 Google Maps
One more stop today then a couple wake-ups across The Drake Passage until vacation is over.
Up until today, we've seen whales a couple times... but, for me, it's always been at a distance. They've always been off in the distance, and the best shot's I'd get would be of a tail... or maybe some spray... but nothing terribly impressive.
Then today as we were (ironically) headed towards "Whaler's Bay," a pair of whales came right up to the ship to say hello...
Pretty amazing.
And they were there playing around the ship for a long, long time. Over an hour. After I took the above photos, I went back to my cabin, took a shower, and uploaded my photos. After all that I saw they were still there, so I grabbed my iPhone to shoot some video. It goes on for eight minutes, so I trimmed it so as not to bore you to death...
An unexpected bonus for this trip, to be sure. We didn't even have to leave the ship!
The gods of Antarctica giveth... and the gods of Antarctica taketh away.
Yesterday's excursion to Neko Harbor was everything I could have hoped for when it comes to photographing Antarctica... a non-stop parade of beautiful blue-blue skies, water so calm it was like a mirror, and a gorgeous location to shoot at.
Today? Not so much.
Our first excursion to Orne Harbour this morning was canceled because of nonstop sleet and zero visibility. Our second excursion to Bancroft Bay went ahead as scheduled, but even my best photos couldn't hold a candle to my worst photos yesterday. Especially with the snow coming down. I tried to photograph some birds as we left the ship, but it was tough to focus through all the white stuff in the air...
There was a bit of excitement because some whales were spotted while we were out. The krill they were eating must have been near the surface, because they didn't do much except show their tails...
After taking a lot of photos of water where wales used to be, we continued further into the harbor to look at glaciers and icebergs...
If there's one thing that Antarctica has, it's an abundance of icebergs.
And then... time to head back to the ship...
And... today's progress...
©2017 Google Maps
Tomorrow is our last day of exploring Antarctica before heading back across The Drake. Hoping for a great finale to the trip!
And lo did the weather gods smile upon us, for today's second excursion to the actual continent of Antarctica exceeded my dreams.
When the ship pulled into the harbor, you immediately knew something special was going to happen because the water was so calm. It was like a massive mirror reflecting everything you see...
It kind of messes with your head because you're seeing double across the entire horizon...
As we headed out in a Zodiac to our landing site, the ice in the water started out pretty small...
But kept getting bigger and thicker the closer we got...
By the time we made it to shore, it was all ice...
Everywhere you looked, there was gorgeous scenery begging to be photographed. And if this were the only day I had in Antarctica, I would have been perfectly fine with that...
Yes, those are penguins laying there if you zoom in...
There's a couple rookeries nearby where penguins hangs out...
They're building nests by hauling pebbles around...
Except pebbles are lacking, so they're pretty much just stealing them from each other's nests. Which results in arguments, as you'd imagine...
And so... yeah... Neko Harbor. A pretty great end to a pretty great day...
Everything I see after this is gravy.
Neko Harbor is a backtrack through Andvord Bay from yesterday, so our progress is a little backwards...
©2017 Google Maps
The weather seems to be clouding up again, so I'm guessing tomorrow won't be as nice as today. Which is totally okay... if every day were this perfect, my head might explode.
Despite the fact that we're in the Antarctica summer months, it's still feels very much like winter here. Snow is everywhere and the skies are overcast and gray. It's also fairly chilly, but ultimately warm enough that I find myself stripping out of my winter coat. A fleece with my thermal underwear is more than enough.
Today's first excursion was at Cuverville Island, which is prime breeding ground for the gentoo penguin. We're told that 5,000 pairs of them breed here annually, which is a lot of penguins...
The penguin eggs are a delicacy for many predators. Skua birds just love to swoop down and make a quick meal out of an unattended egg...
Global warming is endangering breeding beaches, forcing the penguins to seek higher and higher ground. This is unfortunate, because they move quite poorly on land. In the water they are graceful and fast, on land they are awkward and clumsy. They're constantly falling over as they try to make their way from one spot to another...
To make things easier, penguins navigate the landscape via "penguin highways" that are created from endless birds walking the same paths over and over again...
Penguins are curious creatures with odd behaviors that are fun to speculate over. This penguin, for example, just stood in one spot for the longest time with his flipper out like he was directing traffic or something...
Which might have come in handy for these penguins that ended up "stranded" on an iceberg...
My favorite thing to to do is watch dirty penguins head to the water...
Where they swim around, get cleaned up, and have a bite to eat...
Then return as clean penguins, drying themselves in the breeze...
And... that's all she wrote for Cuverville Island. Time to navigate the icy waters back to the ship...
And... here's where we are now, very close to our last landing...
©2017 Google Maps
Later today we're making our first landing on the actual continent of Antarctica instead of the surrounding islands as we have been. More than a little excited for that!
Since it's summer here at the bottom of the globe, the sun never truly "sets"... it just kinda dips below the horizon for a while. If we were closer to the Antarctic Circle, we wouldn't even see that, because the sun pretty much hangs around all day long in December.
Tonight we took the zodiacs out for a spin so we could see some icebergs in the evening sun. Which usually doesn't feel much like "evening"... except this time it did. The clouds that rolled in this afternoon just kept piling up, blotting out much of the sunlight. Add a misty fog across the water and this is about as "nighttime" as you're going to get right now.
And it's sublimely beautiful.
The atmosphere coupled with the buttery light of the sun peaking through the clouds was a photographer's paradise, and I shot hundreds of photos of glacier ice... all of them amazing. Picking favorites to post here was no easy chore. But I whittled it down to a dozen shots just to keep this entry a reasonable length...
Amazingly enough, we found some wayward gentoo penguins hanging out on the ice...
And... here's where we ended up today...
©2017 Google Maps
Here's hoping the weather improves a bit for tomorrow's landings.
Yesterday's excursion had to be canceled in lieu of the medical evacuation, so this morning's landing at Hydrurga Rocks is my official first time stepping foot on Antarctica soil. So far as landfalls go, we couldn't have asked for nicer weather. The skies are a stunning blue-on-blue color that, I'm guessing, comes from having pristine, pollution-free air. As if that weren't enough, temperatures were above freezing, so I stripped off my jacket the minute I stepped off the Zodiac Raft.
This place is famous as a breeding ground for chinstrap penguins, and they are everywhere...
It's breeding season, so rocky "nests" are being built pebble by pebble in order to create a safe space until the eggs hatch...
The penguins are accustomed to humans, and will walk right up to you if you're not moving around too much. This guy wandered up next to where I was sitting and just stared at me for a good ten minutes...
In the water, penguins are graceful swimmers who can move with precision and skill. On land they are clumsy creatures that seem to fall over a lot. Watching them walk is adorable and high entertainment...
Bonus... there were also seals!
Not a bad first landing, that's for sure!
After we got back the the ship, the beautiful blue skies we had enjoyed all morning started to turn...
Guess the weather was good while it lasted.
And... today's progress...
©2017 Google Maps
Today the ship arrived at our detour to King George Island so the passenger who was thrown down the stairs yesterday could be air-lifted to Chile for surgery. The hope is that his circulation wasn't badly damaged by his compound leg fractures. If it was, he could lose his leg. The ship's doctor thinks he's going to come through fine despite the serious damage, so fingers crossed.
I can't fathom how much a med-evac for something like this costs. Tens of thousands of dollars, certainly. The flight-time alone out of Puente Arenas is 5-1/2 hours each way. Fortunately, the expedition group requires that you have comprehensive insurance for just such an emergency, so at least the poor guy won't have to mortgage his house after he gets out of the hospital.
But I'm ahead of myself...
Today was the day that we officially crossed into Antarctic waters. I think people were more excited about being in calm waters than they were about becoming "Antarcticans." Being able to walk without being thrown around is kinda a big deal.
King George Island has bases from countries around the world. According to Wikipedia, there are research stations here from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Ecuador, South Korea, Peru, Poland, Russia, Uruguay, and The United States. Chile's base "Frei" has the landing strip where the med-evac will happen. I snapped some photos of buildings and a helicopter, but have no idea which country they belong to...
And... today's progress...
©2017 Google Maps
After we've confirmed that the med-evac plane has reached "the point of no return" and will definitely be coming to pick up our passenger, we're headed into the Gerlache Strait and further down the Antarctic Peninsula.
And so... not the smooth sailing I was hoping for.
The open sea has proven so treacherous that the ship seems to be floating on its side from time to time. You look out your portal and you can see your own wake. Naturally, this has caused a lot of discomfort for a lot of people onboard. As for me? I don't get seasick, but I put one of those patch things behind my ear just in case.
Unfortunately the patch can't prevent a door from slamming on my finger.
I went to leave the cabin just as a big wave struck the side of the ship. This swung the door back with my hand still attached. Ouch. My right ring finger now has a pretty big chunk of skin ripped off of it.
It's surprising how simple things like sleeping, opening a door, brushing your teeth, and going to the bathroom become a major ordeal when attempted on rough seas. During breakfast this morning, a wave struck the ship and rolled it pretty hard. All the breakfast plates, glasses, mugs, and utensils went flying. It was then I learned that each season over half of the dishes on this ship have to be replaced. The cost of doing business in the Antarctic, I suppose.
And it's not just the dishes that are breaking... regardless of how careful you are, the potential for injury on a trip like this is huge.
Yesterday a guy tripped on a busted sidewalk in Ushuaia and couldn't board the ship because his ankle was jacked up. Then this morning during some particularly turbulent seas I heard a man screaming in the hallway. I went out to see if I could help and ran into somebody who told me that a man had just fallen down the stairs and broke his leg. Turns out he has a very bad compound fracture and has to be air-lifted to a hospital. We were going to head back to Ushuaia to drop him, but there's a hurricane-force storm to the north which means we can't. So... we are making a detour to the only nearby place a plane can land... King George Island.
Considering the seas are as violent as they are, I would not be surprised if there end up being more such accidents.
In better news... we saw our first iceberg today. It was kinda tough to get good photos when the ship was rocking and rolling, but I did my best...
And Antarctica is still a day away...
©2017 Google Maps
More rough seas ahead, I'm sure.
We were kicked out of our hotel room at 10am, but couldn't board the ship until 4pm. This resulted in a lot of sitting around, but also lunch.
The M/V Ushuaia was formerly a research ship (and is still registered that way if you look it up on a marine tracker), so luxury accommodations aren't really what you're getting when you sign up. Welcome to my new home in Cabin #210...
Still, it's a nice ship and she'll be on her way in mere hours...
The M/V Ushuaia has internet via satellite. It's slow and unreliable, but available if you want to pay for it. I've decided that, for this trip at least, I really don't. I want to completely unplug from events back home. I just want to forget all the bullshit for a week and be at peace.
Here's hoping for smooth sailing over the most violent waters on earth.
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