Day 7: Petermann Island

Seventh day on the ship. We are now halfway through our landing days. We’ve had three days in Antarctica; we’ve got three more to go.

We were coming back north from the circle, with two excursions planned for the day—one in the afternoon and one after dinner. We started the morning with an 8am breakfast, followed by a lecture on ice and the Southern Ocean in the main lounge.

Then we had a short briefing at 11:30, where Alex informed us that because our ship had been slowed down by ice we weren’t going to be able to make our hoped-for afternoon landing in Penola Strait. Instead, the team put together a couple more lectures for us to attend. One was on one team member’s experience living at the South Pole.

This evening they had a BBQ planned, which was supposed to be held outside on the deck. But the weather didn’t cooperate, so we had our BBQ in the dining room where we had all our other meals.

Then after dinner, it was time for our landing on Petermann Island. There was the option for a zodiac cruise only, which they said was the best chance of seeing leopard seals trying to catch penguin chicks. Sounded cool but I chose the landing, as did Jeff & Allen. They started loading the zodiacs at about 7:30pm.
day07-01
day07-02
We finally managed to get a photo of the three of us together.
day07-03
day07-04
There were tons of gentoo penguins with a few Adelies mixed in.
day07-05
day07-06
day07-07
day07-08
The ice was pretty slushy in some areas. The green color is algae.
day07-09
day07-10
day07-11
day07-12
day07-13
Some of the slush was a few inches deep. Good thing those boots are waterproof!
day07-14
day07-15
day07-16
day07-17
day07-18
day07-19
day07-20
day07-21
day07-22
Penguin parents regurgitate krill for their young.
day07-23
day07-24
Another hiker penguin
day07-25
This was the view from the top of that path. See the seal playing in the water?
day07-26
day07-27
More penguin chicks eating from their parents’ beaks.
day07-28
day07-29
day07-30
The red is caused by snow algae. This is also sometimes called watermelon snow.
day07-31
day07-32
Circle of life
day07-33
day07-34
day07-35
Penguins are super flexible.
day07-36
Finally around 9:30pm it was time to head back to the ship, although I could’ve stayed on land for hours more. The next day we were going to try for three landings, with the first being before breakfast at 6am. Time to get some sleep.

Day 6: Seals and some surprised Chileans

The seals may have been surprised, too, come to think of it.

After lunch, we prepared to visit Carvajal, a former British Antarctic Survey station that was transferred to Chile in 1984. It hadn’t been used in 14 years, though, so the expedition team had no reason to expect it would be manned now. Alex explained how part of his job is to make contact with manned stations the day before we hope to land there, to make sure they’re okay with having us as visitors and so they are expecting us.
day06-36
But this day, since they thought it was vacant, the Quark team went ahead in their zodiacs to scope out the landing site ahead of bringing the passengers up, as usual, and they were surprised to find a group of about 10 Chileans working there. The Chileans were also pretty surprised to see them, since no one else had stopped there this season. (I can’t remember if they said they’d seen any other ships go by or not, but for sure none had stopped.) They were there to do repairs and maintenance on the buildings to get them ready to use as a research station again.

Despite having no advance notice, and possibly because they hadn’t seen other people since they got there in November, they were very welcoming towards us.
day06-37
Here’s the spot where we landed. This was the rough landing spot I mentioned the other day…the zodiac was bobbing up and down by a foot or so in the water and we had to step out onto some large rocks and climb up a few big wet rocks. The Quark team and the Chileans stationed themselves along the path to give us a hand if we needed it. You can also see the bags (in the foreground here) where we put our lifejackets once we were on land.
day06-38
day06-39
day06-40
Fur seals everywhere! Dozens of them!
day06-41
day06-42
day06-43
day06-44
What we looked like taking photos of them all.
day06-45
The first elephant seal we’d seen. They open their mouths not to yawn but to bare their teeth, just so you know.
day06-46
day06-47
day06-48
The blue bins stored a variety of things, including human waste. Even the people living on Antarctica must bring everything out with them.
day06-49
day06-50
The are the largest seals (in fact this one isn’t even a full-grown adult–he will likely still double in size), and their name refers to their trunk-like noses. Although it totally fits their massive size, too.

Parasites live in their noses for their whole lives, so they always have what looks like a runny nose as they try to expel them.
day06-51
The hikers heading up a glacier.
day06-52
More elephant seals at the base of the glacier. This was quite a ways from the water. I was pretty impressed that these seals can move well enough on land to get this far inland.
day06-53
day06-54
day06-55
At the top of the glacier, remnants of a plane crash.
day06-56
day06-57
day06-58
day06-59
day06-60
There’s the baby again with the others.
day06-61
day06-62
day06-63
Dozens more fur seals were hanging out at the base of the glacier.
day06-64
day06-65
After this landing, we were back on the ship having our daily re-cap in the main lounge when suddenly one of the team brought in the Chileans!
day06-66
They had wanted a tour of our ship. Everyone gave them a very warm welcome (there was lots of clapping and cheering), and one of them gave a short speech in Spanish (which was translated for us) thanking us for visiting. Several people wanted to take photos with them. Quark also gave them a couple crates of fresh produce, which they hadn’t had since November.

And then we had dinner and sailed into a hurricane. I’ll make that a separate post, since this is already so long.

Day 6: Morning on Horseshoe Island

Day 6, still south of the circle. Our third day of doing landings.
day06-01
Keeping the deck clean. I was out on deck a little earlier than usual this morning. Before we got to Antarctica, I had thought I would be up super early to take pictures, or even get up in the middle of the night to see the stars. But as excited as I was to see and photograph it all, I was exhausted at the end of each day, so I never woke up before the wake-up call each morning, which came 30 minutes before breakfast. (The time of breakfast varied depending on the day’s plans.)

So anyway, this was the only day I caught anyone cleaning the decks.
day06-02
The first zodiac full of passengers heads to our morning landing site. This site had tighter restrictions on how many people could be on land at once, so they took us in two waves. Allen, Jeff & I were in the second wave.
day06-03
The views from the ship were amazing as always.
day06-04
day06-05
day06-06
This morning we were venturing to Horseshoe Island in Marguerite Bay, home of a British research base that had been abandoned in 1960. It was left basically as they’d left it in 1960–magazines & food & all.
day06-07
day06-08
day06-09
This site had a guest book we could sign.
day06-10
day06-11
day06-12
day06-13
Fun fact: Buildings in Antarctica are never locked, in case anyone has emergency need for shelter.
day06-14
That paper posted on the wall says at the top: “HOW TO BAKE ABOUT 9 LBS OF BREAD.”
day06-15
This bright green is copper that’s been exposed and oxidized. It was in rocks all over the island.
day06-16
day06-17
day06-18
day06-19
day06-20
day06-21
day06-22
day06-23
Guess who!
day06-24
day06-25
More of the oxidized copper
day06-26
day06-27
day06-28
We saw a few seals around the island.
day06-29
But these were the only two penguins (Adelies) that we saw this morning. Mostly we were too far south for penguins.
day06-30
day06-31
This was one of the zodiac rides where I decided to take my chances and keep a camera out, because we’d gone through some really cool ice on the way to land.
day06-32
day06-33
This was also the zodiac ride where we had to get towed in. And sitting at the front of our zodiac you can see a piece of ice that Jimmy had collected. They melted this and auctioned off the glacier water at the end of the trip.
day06-34
The ice was right there.

By the way this also reminds me that in the middle of the night on the ship, you could hear the ship hitting and scraping ice in the water. It was a little disconcerting, but I just told myself that it must be normal because I heard it a lot and nothing bad ever seemed to happen.
day06-35
And thus ended the morning. Then it was time to eat lunch as we headed to our next landing site, which is where we surprised the Chileans.

Day 4, afternoon: Two landings in one

For the afternoon landings, we had another choice to make. We could do a landing at Port Lockroy only, a landing at both Damoy Point and Port Lockroy, or a landing with a long hike at Damoy Point, followed by a shorter visit to Port Lockroy. The two sites are right next to each other. Port Lockroy is on a very small island–it includes a gift shop, a small museum, and a post office. Because it’s so small, they had to control the crowds so all 100+ of us weren’t there at the same time.

day04-037

My uncle (looking up and waving here) headed out on a zodiac.

day04-038

Jeff in his gear for our zodiac ride. The blue life vest apparently inflates automatically upon hitting the water. We never saw this in action, luckily.

day04-039
day04-040
The afternoon started out very foggy. Jeff & I had chosen to do the hike at Damoy Point, so we started there.
day04-041
A fur seal was hanging out near our landing point.
day04-042
day04-043
day04-044
day04-045
day04-046
It started to clear up a little as we got to the top of the glacier we were hiking on.

day04-047

This is Tom, who takes even more pictures than I do.

day04-048
The fog started to lift just in time for everyone to take photos before starting back down.
day04-049
day04-050
You can see the line of yellow penguins at Port Lockroy…they are non-native but still pretty interesting. This is looking down from the glacier on Damoy Point.
day04-051
day04-052
day04-053
day04-054
day04-055
I took a picture of white.
day04-056
Back at the bottom of the glacier was an old hut that was built in 1973 but hasn’t been used since 1993. It still contains scientific equipment and various artifacts.
day04-057
day04-058
Back outside I came across this egg as I hiked back toward the landing site.
day04-059
day04-060
A penguin headed toward our path.
day04-061
day04-062
But instead of crossing the path, he turned and started to hike with us!
day04-063
day04-064
day04-065
By the time I got back to the zodiac boarding site, there was actual blue sky showing.
day04-066
We were then ferried by zodiac over to Port Lockroy.
day04-067
Remember the rule about staying at least 5 meters away from penguins? This island is so small and there are so many penguins that it’s not possible to do that here. But there are footpaths from the landing spot up to the building, so you pretty much just stay on those and try not to disturb any penguins too much.
day04-068
The museum, gift shop, and post office are inside this building.
day04-069
day04-070
Mailing a letter at the post office. It takes 6-8 weeks for them to arrive.

You can also get your passport stamped here. It’s just for fun, of course, since Antarctica is not a country, but who doesn’t want a penguin in their passport?? Since Quark was holding our passports, they handled having them stamped for us. (And they’d provided a signup sheet where you could indicate if you did not want yours stamped.)
day04-071
Leave your bag on the path, it gets snuggled by a penguin chick.
day04-072
day04-073
day04-074
day04-075
day04-076
day04-077
day04-078
day04-079
day04-080
And then it was time to get back on the zodiac and head back to the ship.

It was nearly 7pm by the time we got back to the ship, and the day wasn’t over. We still had the re-cap, dinner, and sailing through the Lemaire Channel on tap for the night.

Day 4, morning: First landing!

I’m going to have to divide up the days now that we’re getting to the landings. It’s not that I have more to say, but I have way more photos to show.

On the morning of the fourth day, the boat was no longer rocking and rolling. When we woke up, there was almost no motion at all, because at some point in the night, we had dropped anchor at Cuverville Island. I got dressed and went out on deck to take it in.
day04-001
day04-002
day04-003
It was foggy and you couldn’t see very far because of that, but you could see the crazy blue icebergs that were all around us. WE WERE HERE. This was what we had come for, why we had been willing to spend two days bobbing around the Drake Passage (calm as it was).

Breakfast was at 7am, followed immediately by our first zodiac rides to shore. For this landing, there were three options: a zodiac cruise around the bay, a landing, or a landing including a long hike. If you wanted to do the zodiac cruise or the long hike, you had to sign up on a sheet at reception so they could keep track of numbers. (We had done this the night before, after the re-cap where Alex had explained the choices.) All three of us chose to do the long hike, so after breakfast they called the long hikers first for the zodiacs, and we were off.
day04-004
day04-005
day04-006
day04-007
Laurie, the historian, led our hike (and would lead all the hikes on the other landings, as well). I was already impressed with his ability to tell a good story from his talks about the early explorers, but I did not yet know what an amazing athlete he is. I will come back to that later.
day04-008
day04-009
day04-010
day04-011

day04-012

My uncle

day04-013
I trailed the line, because, as usual, I kept stopping to take pictures.
day04-014
day04-015
The kayakers on their first kayak of the trip. Kayaking cost an additional fee, and each time we did a landing, weather permitting, the kayakers went out. They always had the choice to kayak or do the landing. I considered signing up but ultimately decided I wanted to do as many landings as possible.
day04-016
We were still making our way up the hill, but the higher we went, the worse the visibility, and eventually, 420 feet up, we decided to call it quits. There wasn’t much point to going on because it was hard to see anything. The hill was steep, and the guides said it was safe to slide down it if we wanted to.
day04-017
Sliding down the hill on their backs! That’s my uncle going down, and Jeff getting ready to (with the blue backpack). I did not slide, since I had two cameras on me that would’ve gotten full of snow.

Once we were back down, we had some time to hang out on the pebbly beach and observe the penguins.
day04-018
day04-019
You can see that the guy on the right is molting. They lose all their feathers and then grow new ones, which takes about two weeks. They mostly just sit in one spot for those two weeks, conserving energy since they can’t go in the water to find food during that time.
day04-020
day04-021
day04-022
day04-023
day04-024
day04-025
day04-026
day04-027
day04-028
day04-029
day04-030
day04-031
day04-032
Second-to-last zodiac heading back to the ship. I got on the last one.

And then it was lunchtime and we were off to the next spot. We sailed through the Neumeyer Channel on our way to our afternoon landing sites.
day04-033
day04-034
day04-035
day04-036
Next up…Damoy Point and Port Lockroy.