Sunday, March 10, 2019 – I woke up feeling old today.
Achy, tired and a little out of sorts. Last night was the first night I haven’t slept well. When I did manage to sleep, it was a deep sleep, but I woke up about a million times ☹ The seas were a different kind of rough overnight as well, much more of a choppy motion than the lulling one I’ve become accustomed to. Several things flew off the desk and the bathroom counter, which hasn’t happened previously. That probably had some bearing on the quality of sleep!
The other factor is that I hurt my knee a little bit yesterday, and just couldn’t seem to get comfortable. The knee feels ok this morning, I’m just in a bit of a fog. And speaking of fog, it definitely looks like I imagined Antarctica to look this morning. Snowing lightly, foggy and low visibility. There’s been a lot of discussion about how lucky we’ve been weather-wise on this trip, so I’m hoping this is just a small aberration, and we will get back to brighter days soon. I was scheduled to go paddling today, but I’m gonna save my money for alcohol and souvenirs unless they let me move paddling to another day!!!
The ship moved into position at the north end of the Lemaire Channel this morning around 7:45am and proceeded, in the foggy and slightly snowy weather, to make our way through this narrow channel that separates Booth Island from mainland Antarctica. The channel is about 7 miles long and 1 mile wide, but less than ½ mile wide at its narrowest point, and is filled with icebergs and sea ice. That means that there is less than ¼ mile on each side of the ship as it passes through this narrow section, and today, there was a huge iceberg blocking part of it!
As we transitted through, we were able to see Humpback and Minke whales, gentoo penguins “porpoising” through the water. This behavior may be the cutest wildlife thing I’ve ever seen as they fly underwater, then propel themselves up and out of the water for a short distance. They do a shallow dive back into the water and repeat the process, again and again! Sometimes there are tens or possibly hundreds of them doing this simultaneously, looking a little like a raft.
At the end of the channel, the ship’s horn was blown to signify the completion of the passage. Shortly thereafter, we arrived at our first landing site for the day, Petermann Island. This island is surrounded by beautiful sea ice and icebergs, and is the home to a colony of Gentoo penguins. Like the Adelie penguins seen in previous days, they are in various stages of molting. Unlike the Adelie’s, the Gentoos were curious and completely unafraid of human visitors. International laws of protection provide that a minimum distance of 5 meters must be maintained between the human and bird/mammal, further in some cases. As hard as all of us tried, it was impossible to stay 5 meters away. The Gentoos had the landing area surrounded and were so curious about us. They were in the water where the zodiacs were approaching the island, and stood about 3 feet from where I disembarked the zodiac.
The staff asked us to proceed quickly away from the landing area, where we take off life jackets and get our gear out of our waterproof bags. I walked about 50 yards up the hill and sat down on the snow/ice. In less than a minute, a penguin was approaching me. It walked right up to me, within arm’s reach, and looked me up and down, then walked around my outstretched legs and up the other side, then continued on to whatever s/he was doing before my arrival! Luckily, I was prepared and was able to take a short video of the encounter. I witnessed many other close encounters during my short stay on Petermann Island.
There was also a zodiac cruise with various seals, penguins and other birds close by, in addition to the spectacular icebergs that gather in this area. The blue colors of the icebergs are unbelievable!
We re-boarded the ship for lunch and a short repositioning jaunt to Port Charcot, where there was another Gentoo colony. My group went directly to the landing point, and wandered up the hill. I had been downloading pictures to my computer while on our lunch break, and forgot to re-install the SD card into my DSLR camera. And, my iPhone only had about 25% battery power, and it discharges very fast in this colder weather. I was forced to be judicious about the photos I took and that encouraged me to find a nice place to sit and just experience the moment.
The penguins are pretty clumsy critters on land, laugh-out-loud funny as they stumble and fall, slide a bit (called tobogganing), and then get up and waddle for a minute until they fall again! The penguins were more standoffish at this landing site. It was surmised that its because there was a wider range of young chicks, and probably fewer human visitors to this site, that they’re more skittish than those at the previous site, where there are more visitors. Later learned that it’s the younger penguins are typically more curious than the adults… so still no real understanding gained as to why the penguin behavior differs between colonies of the same species.
When I left the penguin colony, I boarded a zodiac and the guide took us out on Pleneau Bay, which is known as an iceberg “gallery”! Its one of the few places in the Antarctic where winds and currents combine to bring both massive tabular icebergs and sculptured glacial icebergs to a relatively small, dead-end area, where they float around the bay, capsize and roll around a lot, and very slowly melt away into the waters of the bay. There were so many shapes, size and even colors, that it was hard to get enough.
My iPhone was on 2% battery power when I boarded the zodiac, and by exercising great judgement about when to take a photo, AND keeping it warm in my hands between pictures, I was able to prolong the battery until we returned to ship over an hour later with just a handful of what I hope are great pictures that capture the unique beauty of this incredible area. Its pretty interesting not just shooting photos of everything in sight. Sure I might get lucky to get some good images, but I’ve found that I enjoy the day a lot more when I put down the camera or iPhone and just live in the moment!
We headed back north through the Lemaire Channel where we attended an Antarctic Barbecue hosted by the kitchen and dining staff on the back deck, and witnessed one of the most stunning sunsets I’ve ever seen. The sky and mountains were pink to the starboard side of the ship, yellowish off the bow, and absolutely on fire on the port side.
Tomorrow, breakfast starts at 7:15am and we have three different zodiac excursions throughout the day and lots of other moving around to do. It feels great to be exhausted, and at 10:30pm and after a couple of shots of Jameson’s over glacial ice, I feel young again, at least for now!
Travels with Nance 