Returning Home

We woke up this morning to the ship's engines running but no movement. We are nearly at the port in Ushuaia.

Yesterday was a relaxing day on board, our final day. The seas were rougher than the first day going through the Drake Passage, but still nothing very difficult. It remained less rough than the South Georgia to Antarctica crossing. Even though we didn't get the "Drake Shake" we were not unhappy.

Around lunchtime, we sailed around the tip of Cape Horn. This is the southernmost point of Chile, and we were contacted by Chile and told we could not approach closer than 3 miles (which we knew, but I guess they wanted to make sure). There wasn't much wildlife, just a few birds flying around, but what was more fun was watching the waves coming up against the ship. At a couple of points, Greg went outside with the GoPro video recorder to record the movement of the ship against the waves. It kept us entertained for a couple of hours.

We've gone a total of 3,525 nautical miles of navigation on this journey – a long way!

Last night we did a group photo at 6pm, followed by a happy hour in the bar, and a very nice dinner – filet mignon, potatoes and tiramisu for dessert. Following dinner, we headed back to the bar / lecture room for the auction to raise money for the South Georgia Heritage Trust rat eradication program. Although we're not sure how much was raised, it was probably a couple thousand dollars, and one passenger offered up to $5,000 in matching funds. So we feel good about that. I bought a signed original heavy postcard of a bottlenose dolphin drawn by Kate Spencer, a naturalist on board. The auction was hilarious – it was supposedly run by Nick, a staff member from Tasmania who leads other Cheeseman's tours as well. But he's a terrible auctioneer, kept missing bids and lowering the auction amount. So a couple of passengers – Mandeep and Lisa particularly – stepped in to keep things moving.

Then we had the final photographic retrospective of our time in Antarctica. It is spectacularly gorgeous and it was a great reminder of where we've been and what we've seen. The final images were of the people on the trip, which was also a great way to end the evening.

We finally retired around midnight, having packed our bags in the afternoon and evening. As of this morning, we are heading home!

Pictures - Jan. 23

Attached are some additional photos from the last few days. Enjoy!

1 - This first image shows an orca whale surfacing, along with a second orca in the background. We experienced these whales right next to the ship and the staff estimated there were 75-100 whales congregating there, feeding and socializing. It was fantastic!!

Drake: Stirred, Not Shaken

We pulled anchor and departed from Livingston Island and Hannah Point last night, and began heading north across the Drake Passage. The Drake Passage, and the Southern Ocean in general, have the reputation as some of the roughest waters in the world. It's not that the seas are always rough, but that they can be pretty variable. So sometimes the seas are relatively calm, hence the name "Drake Lake," and sometimes it's pretty rough – the "Drake Shake." Some people actually hope for rough seas just for the experience of it, but not us. Though the seas today may not technically be considered Drake Lake, we think it's pretty close. In fact, we think the seas were a bit rougher on the transit from South Georgia to Antarctica. So we're still feeling good.

We attended a couple of lectures today. The first was by Doug Cheeseman with some photography and perspective on the trips the Cheeseman's lead in East Africa. Doug and Gail have been there over 60 times in 30 years, so have accumulated quite a lot of great photographs, especially of birds. We'd consider going an Africa trip with them – they say they'll continue to lead trips to Africa until they are no longer physically able to do so – but would want to be sure we'd have some focus on the large animals and not just the birds, as we are not birders.

After lunch, we attended a lecture by Rod Planck. We've really come to appreciate Rod during this expedition – he's a great photographer and seems to be quite a good teacher as well. He lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and does photography seminars and workshops there and around the world. We may be checking out some of the options to travel with Rod and Marlene in the future as well.

Then it was time to select photos to submit for the Antarctica slideshow, plus one for the "people" slideshow. For that, we submitted a photo from yesterday where a penguin had approached a fellow passenger and actually started pecking or "beaking" his pants leg. There is a nice shot of the bird looking up at this person (Doug) while Doug looked right back down at him. Greg and I had some close encounters with the penguins as well, certainly where they were close enough to touch, though we restrained ourselves. I don't think they would like that very much...

Tonight we may watch "Christmas in Yellowstone" which is about what is sounds, but also features Tom Murphy, one of the professional photographers on board. We first saw this show just by pure chance in December 2010, after we had booked this trip. The name Tom Murphy seemed familiar so I checked the Cheeseman's itinerary and we realized Tom was going to be on this expedition with us. We were quite excited then and we've learned so much from Tom during the past month, so that's been fantastic. Of course, after watching the program we also thought he was crazy – I mean, he goes into Yellowstone in the middle of winter with a 60 pound pack, skies through the park, and then camps in a lean-to (not even a tent). I believe there is a shot of him waking up one morning by shaking the snow off of his heavy sleeping bag as it had snowed overnight. But the crazy and patient photographers are typically the ones who get the best shots. We would definitely consider booking a trip with Tom in Yellowstone, particularly in the winter as that is his specialty and a place we'd like to revisit.

Up To Our Chins in Chinstraps

Today is our last day of the expedition before we head north into the Drake Passage for the first part of our return home. It is bittersweet to be sure.

We started by landing at Bailey Head. This is a fantastic spot, one of our favorites (among several favorites). This is a beautiful black sand beach and there are estimated to be at least 100,000 nesting pairs of chinstrap penguins here. It's reputed to be a difficult landing, and one that we skipped earlier on in the trip due to bad weather. But today was pretty good. The landing is a bit rough because you have to gauge the timing of the waves, and it takes up to 8 staff to hold a zodiac in the waves so passengers can unload onto the beach and then load back in to return to the ship. They are very careful, and willing to get pretty much drenched in the process. The beach has a steep rise so the waves break right at the edge of the water, which is what makes this a tough landing. They cautioned us to lighten our packs which some people completely ignored (but not us). The staff has been so great in getting us access to some amazing places; it's just right to put them in danger by ignoring their advice.

Once we landed, we understood why everyone has been raving about this place and working so hard to make our landing here. At most sites, we are instructed not to cross the "penguin highway" and we were here as well. Only here, it's really a penguin "superhighway." The penguin traffic literally never stops. They are constantly streaming into the ocean to feed and clean themselves, as others porpose out of the ocean and onto the black sand beach to return to their colony and chicks.

There are several colonies stretching up a hundred feet or more onto the cliffs of Deception Island. The landing site is on the outside of the island, which is really the caldera of a still active volcano. Though it hasn't erupted recently, there were significant volcanic events in 1967 and 1969 which wiped out the British station on the edge of the (inside of the) caldera. This first landing wa on the outside of the caldera, so no volcanic risk anyway! It was by far the largest site with chinstrap penguins, with lots of chicks which are always cute.

After spending some time photographing the penguins on the beach, and their activity heading into and out of the water, we walked up a bit to where the colonies are. We still have no idea why the penguins persist in climbing so high to make their nests – one theory is that the higher spots are where the snow and ice melt first, or get cleared by the wind, so that's where they nest. The farthest reaches are a heck of a commute to the ocean – we didn't even get up there ourselves! But they say that penguins are the second most efficient walkers (after humans) so I guess it doesn't bother them too much.

Anyway, we spent some time up in the hills a bit, and here again, there are multiple clusters within the colony, and penguins as far as the eye can see. Most of the sites are pretty red from the guano, and none are situated on snow or ice. In fact, we commented again today that there have been surprisingly few landings with snow or ice or penguins on snow or ice this entire trip. We spent some time at the colony, and then headed back to the landing to return to the ship. This was the most organized entry into a zodiac yet. We lined up into two lines of four people to race into the zodiac once it was ready to be boarded. The waves came in a couple of times and got the bow of the zodiac a bit wet. The goal was to get everyone (plus their gear) loaded in about 7-10 seconds, which I think we pretty much accomplished.

The real excitement for our zodiac though, was when the motor died. When it was coming into the landing site, it was swamped in the waves, and they think sand was pushed into the motor. So we changed zodiacs in the middle of the bay by climbing from one to the other, and gear bags were passed over as well. Off we went to the ship for lunch.

Prior to lunch, the ship passed through Neptune's Bellows, which is a narrow "hole" in the donut which makes up Deception Island. The next item on the agenda was one that we decided not to partake of – this was the opportunity to go "swimming." What this meant was, for those "daft" enough to do it, you could put on a bathing suit, plus your various outer layers, and then head to the shore at Whaler's Cove. Then you could strip off your outer layers, plunge into the ocean, and then try to find a "hot spot" where the ocean meets the beach. The sand was indeed hot enough to see steam rising off of it, even from the ship, but whereas we initially thought that this activity entailed heading into a "hot spring" it was a far cry from that. So we didn't even get off the ship – we just watched about 25 people doing it through binoculars. It was cold enough standing out on the deck photographing them; we didn't need to be there jumping into the ocean ourselves!

Once the "swimming" was over, we left the inside of Deception Island and cruised to Livingston Island to make our final landing at Hannah Point. This final stop had all of the flowering flora of Antarctica – which consists of two grasses. It also has chinstraps and gentoos, and the chicks are older here because we are further north so they are farther along in their breeding cycle than other penguins we've seen in Antarctica. At this stage of their development, the chicks are starting to be weaned by their parents, so sometimes the only way the chicks will get fed is if they chase their parent until the parent finally relents and gives them some food. It's pretty hilarious to watch as the penguins chase each other around. They are sometimes pretty clumsy, so typically at least one of the penguins in the race falls which ends it. We did see one penguin repeatedly tapping its parent's beak to get food, and the parent obliged at least half a dozen times (we could see the krill in transit, which is kind of gross actually). Then the parent got tired of the chick and started sort of pecking it or trying to get it to stop asking for food. Suddenly, the parent started running up the hill with the chick in hot pursuit – only the chick seemed to be even fatter than the parent, so it couldn't really keep up.

The other attraction at Hannah Point is the concentration of elephant seals. They are big and very stinky! They lay in a big pile – I counted over 60 in one place – and they are molting, so they haven't moved in a while. Thus, they are in a "wallow" which is where they've been living full time, so it's where their waste collects as well, in addition to the dead skin which is being molted off. It's very pungent, and they have mucus coming out of their noses (and no way to blow their noses), which they snort out occasionally. It's so odiferous that we had to move after a bit to get away from the smell!

We walked back through the penguins, occasionally stopping by one. They are sometimes curious, and Greg had one that came pretty close to him and was looking at him seeming sort of puzzled. Then he'd look up at Greg's face while Greg was looking down of course...it's all very cute.

Finally, it was back to the ship on our final zodiac cruise ride of this trip. This was followed by dinner and then we saw a movie about rounding Cape Horn. The footage was shot in 1929 and narrated by the photographer in 1980 or so. It was kind of interesting – but we are hoping that our seas are not quite so big.

The forecast for the Drake is some rough seas, but about the magnitude which we felt when crossing from South Georgia and the South Orkeys to Antarctica. We didn't feel bad during that crossing and are hoping that's as bad as it gets.

We've heard that tomorrow (Monday) is the last day for internet access, so this post, but hopefully tomorrow's, will be our last until we get home. We will try to post more pictures tomorrow. It's been a fantastic adventure, but we are looking forward to sleeping in our own bed, getting a clean (no penguin smell) set of clothes, and taking a really long hot shower!

Zodiac Surfing in Cierva Cove

Today we had a wake-up call at 7am, and after breakfast, headed straight to the zodiacs to cruise Cierva Cove. We had attempted to do zodiac cruising here a few days ago (I've lost track of when), but the seas were too rough. That was not the case this morning – it was glassy out there this morning! We were so excited, because we've been hearing so much about this place since we have been approaching Antarctica.

There are two keys to a good zodiac experience – having a good driver, and having good passengers. Luckily, we had both. Our driver was Hugh Rose, who is so knowledgeable and also a professional photographer, so he can help with photography questions along the way. The other participants this morning were some people we know (like Skip & Gail and James) and others we don't know, but all displayed proper zodiac etiquette. This includes kneeling quickly when there is something to see on your side of the zodiac (the people on the other side then stand up), or kneeling down if you're in the front and the animal or scenery you're looking at is in front of you. It was a cohesive group. We've had other zodiac experiences where some of the participants were unwilling or unable to get down in front. This makes for a far less enjoyable experience.

On the cruising this morning, we saw lots of fantastic ice, plus a couple of leopard seals and some porpoising penguins and a couple of cormorants at the end. But the highlight was the ice – lots of brash ice that we had to sort of power our way through, plus big and small icebergs. We found one that was very old and very, very clear. You could see individual ice crystals it was so clear. It was dimpled kind of like a golf ball but with bigger dimples. It's also interesting to see the submerged portion of the icebergs (or at least part of the submerged parts). The water above the submerged portion is usually a lighter blue – almost aqua in color – that is so pretty.

The weather was perfect for cruising this morning – very calm, so that we also saw reflections of some of the icebergs, and it was pretty warm as well, probably 36 degrees or more. That also makes for a more enjoyable experience. As we were heading into the ship around noon, for lunch at 12:30, we were talking to Hugh about what the plan was for the afternoon. Several of us thought the morning had been so great that we should just stay and go out again that afternoon – and that's exactly what we wound up doing.

We had a quick lunch or delicious lasagna bolognese, and then geared up for the afternoon. Zodiacs launched around 2, if not before, and we had the option to be out as late as 7pm as dinner was at 7:30. We tried to hook up with a group of other people, all of whom wanted to see the chinstrap penguins in the water near the colony on a nearby island. But things got a bit messed up in the line waiting for the zodiacs, bud that was okay. We ended up in a boat with Hugh again (yay!) and a group of 7 other people initially. It was another good group, although I had a hard time seeing over some of them initially.

We started the cruising with some whale sightings – there are usually a number of whales in Cierva Cove, including minkes and humpbacks, and we hadn't seen any in the morning. But the afternoon started off with a bang. The humpbacks were playing with us, and very nearby the zodiacs. For perspective, the zodiacs are probably 15 feet long, 6 feet wide, and ride less than 3 feet above the ocean surface. A humpback whale is much, much bigger! But they were swimming nearby, and at various times came up to all of the 8 zodiacs in the area. One of them would surface several times near our zodiac or another one nearby, and at one point it even swam under our zodiac! They are so close, it's hard to get a good photo of them (since our lenses are set up to be taking pictures of smaller things farther away). But it was a fantastic experience, and quite a way to start the afternoon.

After hanging out with the whales for probably an hour or so, we left in search of other animals. We visited the island where the chinstrap colony is, and saw some jumping into and out of the water. Here again, the penguins are nesting on pretty rocky ground, and the waves sometime wash them in or out of the water – they don't necessarily choose their fate! But I'm sure they're all fine, and it sure is funny to watch.

After the penguins, we headed back into the ice in search of seals. Two of the Australians on board, Matt and Laura, hadn't seen any crabeater seals (a misnomer for sure – they only eat krill), and neither had we, so we went off in search of one we had heard was a ways away. Along the way, we hooked up with a couple of other zodiacs, including one driven by Rod. It turned out that Brigitte (of Nico and Brigitte of Switzerland) wanted to return to the ship to use the restroom. But after some discussion, we determined that Rod would leave his zodiac to Nico's control, and everyone but Nico and Brigitte would get onto our zodiac to give them some privacy. So the rest of the zodiacs (by then there were three) motored to the opposite side of the iceberg we were at for a few minutes. We finally returned after the "restroom break." We were careful to be on the side of the iceberg opposite the Argentine station called Primavera, because we knew people were there. It was really pretty hilarious.

By then, it was nearing 4pm, which is typically time for cookies on board the ship. We heard that Ted Cheeseman was out in a zodiac picking up people who wanted to return to the ship, and delivering cookies and hot chocolate (spiked with Tia Maria or virgin). This is a level of customer service which is hard to imagine, let alone duplicate! We waited for Ted so that we could enjoy some cookies, and two of our passengers got into his zodiac to return to the ship. Then we picked up two more from another zodiac where people wanted to return to the ship and went off in search of the seals.

We found two – first, a crabeater seal who was very active. She was moving around quite a lot in an attempt to scratch herself we believe. She also opened her mouth for us, so we got some good footage of that. That we visited another iceberg with a leopard seal, who also obliged us with a few great yawns. Soon enough, it was time to return to the ship for dinner and the conclusion of our zodiac cruising. We headed back along with two other zodiacs driven by Rod and Marlene Planck through waters that had gotten a bit rougher in the afternoon winds. It became our zodiac surfing adventure. Greg got some good footage with the GoPro video camera that we'll definitely post once we get home. It's hard to appreciate even in the video, if not for our repeated screams and laughter as we negotiated the bigger waves. Greg and I were in the front, and by now it had started snowing as well. So we had to kind of shield our faces with our hands as we watched the zodiac rise and fall over the waves on our return to the ship. It was a great ride – kind of like a roller coaster in the ocean.

Dinner was at 7:30 followd by a talk by Joan Booth on Deception Island, our scheduled landing for tomorrow, the last day here in Antarctica before our return across the Drake Passage. Each day seems more incredible than the last so we're hoping for one last day of good weather karma to see us through.

Look! Killer Whales!!

Today began with a wake-up call at 7:00, with breakfast at 7:30. After breakfast, two staff from Port Lockroy visited the ship to give us some history of the site. It was established in 1944 during WWII when the British sent a group of men here to monitor any German activity (there was none) and to conduct various scientific experiments, primarily weather-related data gathering. The station was turned over to scientists exclusively in 1946 after the war, and remained active until 1962. After that, it was abandoned and fell into disrepair until the early 1990s I believe, when Britain surveyed all its Antarctica sites to determine what to do with them. By then, the Antartic Treaty was in effect and each nation was responsbile for cleaning up the sites they had established previously. For Britain, that meant closing some stations, removing everything completely and rendering the sites totally pristine again, but for others, including Port Lockroy, it meant refurbishing the station and turning it into a museum and gift shop. In addition, there has been a post office here since the station was established (I'm not sure about the years during which it was not in use), which gave us an opportunity to mail some more post cards. Here again, stamps were just $1 each to send a postcard anywhere in the world!

The "island" where Port Lockroy museum sits is named Goudier Island and it is incredibly small – essentially just the size of the small building and adjacent living quarters, plus two gentoo penguin colonies. In one of the colonies, the penguins live right next to the structures, so they are very used to having human activity nearby (though the typical rules about remaining 15 feet away apply at least theoretically). There is a second colony which is left undisturbed. Three times per year, the staff counts the penguins and notes the breeding success to determine if there are significant differences in the success of chicks in the two colonies; so far there's not much difference. If there were, they might have to rethink the access of people to the penguins.

The second landing site here was Jougla Point, on adjacent Wiencke Island. This is the place where Jacques Cousteau found a variety of whale bones and essentially reconstructed a whale skeleton. They say it's probably a blue whale, and Kate, one of our naturalists on board, thinks it's either a blue or a fin whale – in either case, it's one of the largest whales from here. She gave us some great information on the structure of the whale's jaw and baleen and how that all works.   

There were also nesting gentoo penguins and Antarctic shags (Cormorants) there as well. Some of the chicks are pretty large, so we are hoping that they all survive this first harsh winter. But Jougla Point, where we landed first, was probably the dirtiest, "muddiest" place we've been so far. In fact, it's amazing how little walking we've done on snow or ice on this trip – last night was one of the few times, but mostly we are walking on rocks and guano. Greg said it lent a whole new meaning to the phrase "Up Shit Creek without a paddle." Boot washes (at Jougla Point, the boot wash was the ocean!) have become very important, especially since you keep your boots in your room!

We returned to the ship for lunch and an expedition afternoon – meaning we had no idea what was planned next. We headed back north through the Peltier Channel and the Neumeyer Channel, which are two more beautiful channels with the snow and glacier covered mountains lining both sides. It's beautiful again today, but the skies are cloudier, lending more of a mysterious air to the landscape versus yesterday's mostly clear skies. It just goes to show that you can be in the same or very similar place repeatedly and keep seeing different things.

After a while, we went to the room to relax a bit, and then heard that there was a pod of orcas off the ship. We raced to the 6^th deck and saw tons of them – we heard estimates of 45-50 whales nearby. They were just a few hundred yards off the ship at first, but then several were literally right next to it – at one point we saw two adults and one calf literally right next to the ship. We could see them underwater which made it easy to see when they were coming up to breathe. It was simply fantastic!!

We then anchored off of Useful Island – but we really have no idea where we are at right now, not that it matters. They started landing groups of 10 around 5:25pm, and the last zodiac was going to be at 7pm for dinner at 7:30. But then we learned that the chinstrap colony was on the top of the hill and we wouldn't have time to go up there, so we'd only be seeing the gentoos, and we've already seen several gentoo colonies, including those at Port Lockroy today. So we considered not going, and some people bailed then. We waited in line another 15 minutes or so, and then Gail Cheeseman said they had decided to scrap the landing. The wind on the landing side of the island had really picked up, and it was windier on the gangway. We hung around for a few minutes but then concluded that with the bad weather, we didn't want to zodiac cruise, even if it was available. We saw a zodiac loaded with people coming back and zipping around between the icebergs off the ship, but it didn't look that interesting, and zodiac cruising can be cold if it's windy. So in the end, we decided to scratch the landing and we returned to our room and changed into jeans for the rest of the evening.

We don't really know what the plan is for tomorrow, but likely we will make a second attempt at zodiac cruising in Cierva Cove, where the whales and seals are often quite abundant. But who knows? And as evidenced by the giant pod of orca whales today, sometimes the best days are the ones not planned at all.

Photos - Thursday, Jan 19

Attached are a few of our favorite photos from the last few days:

1 - A photo of the two of us all "geared up" as we made landing on the Continent!
2 - A leopard seal yawning. This was taken during a zodiac ride so we were about 6 feet away from him. They say they don't ever leap off the iceberg and into the zodiacs to attack the humans...
3 - A gentoo penguin on Cuverville Island trying to eat an old whale bone?
4 - Most of the cathedral of ice we've been raving about - this doesn't even capture the entire iceberg!
5 - A photo of the pack ice we were steering through this afternoon with mountains on either side of the channel we were navigating. Taken with a fish-eye lens which curves the scene versus a "regular" photo.

A Cathedral of Ice

Today was another very full day here in Antarctica. We were awake by 5am and had a 5:30am wake-up call. Even before breakfast, we went straight to zodiac cruising. But before we could begin, there was some "iceberg wrangling" going on. The issue was that some flattish icebergs were coming up alongside the ship, the size of a couple of zodiacs floating on top of the water, plus the 70% or so which was underneath the water. So they needed to be moved before we could load the zodiacs. A couple of the zodiacs would come up to one side of the iceberg in question and gently push it out of the way. Once three or four had been cleared, we proceeded to our cruising. Fortunately, Greg and I were in a zodiac with Bruce Miller and Tom Murphy, along with only three other passengers, so it was relatively easy to move around.

The seas were very calm this morning, and there was a lot of good ice around. We made our way to a flat iceberg with a leopard seal sleeping on it. He didn't have a lot of activity, but they are still fun to see up close and personal. They really do look reptilian, and have lots of spots on their neck and underside. After hanging out with the seal for a while, we also checked out some gentoo penguins on a few icebergs. One on, you could see their footprints from where they got out of the water and hiked up the side of the iceberg, maybe 20-30 feet high.

But we wanted to see more beautiful blue ice, so the zodiac headed for a spot a ways away, which also had some good brash ice to plow through. This is the Antarctica we had envisioned – ice in the water, mountains and ice on all sides, with partly sunny skies and beautiful color and texture in the clouds. Eventually, we made our way to what we called the "Cathedral." This was an enormous iceberg, probably 80-100 feet tall and 500 feet wide. There were multiple "caves" or indentations that we were tempted to drive the zodiac into (but we restrained ourselves). The multiple shades of blue, turquoise, green, white and grey were absolutely astounding. There were sharp peaks, like the steeples of a church, "windows" cut out in some of the peaks, and it had sculpted sides with icicles hanging down from the cave ceilings. Because the water was so calm, the reflections were amazing – we could see it "right side up" and upside down as well. It was so big, it was pretty much impossible to capture the entire iceberg in one photo, even with a wide angle lens. We stayed there for about 30 – 45 minutes just cruising back and forth, and when we went to leave we realized that we were driving the zodiac over the submerged portion of the iceberg. Bruce even stuck his underwater camera into the cold, cold ocean and tried to capture some of the texture from below the surface. It's so interesting to see the water change colors as we change from being over deep ocean, which is a dark steely grey color, to being over an iceberg, where you can see the ice under the most beautiful turquoise or greenish-blue water. Finally, we realized that we had to leave to get back to the ship reasonably close to our appointed time.

On the way back, we paused for a few minutes for more penguins and one more seal (we'd seen three this morning) and then had a bit of a zodiac race with Jim Danzenbaker's group (we won!). Quickly shedding our outermost layers, we headed into breakfast.

After breakfast, we began the journey through Paradise Bay. This landscape is incredibly beautiful, with towering mountains covered by icebergs. The sun was peeking out, so we saw glimpses of blue sky along with clouds ranging from white to dark grey. The landscape here is difficult to describe and even more difficult to capture in a single photo. We have some which include dark mountains with some ice patches next to glacier covered mountains which rise hundreds of feet from the ocean's surface. With the sun reflecting off all of the snow and ice, they are gorgeous.

The landscape continued to impress as we made our way through the Lamaire Channel on the way to Petermann Island. We had a great deal of fun passing through the end of the Lemaire Channel. We were breaking through first year ice as we went along, and we saw lots of seals on the icebergs. They were generally just lounging or sleeping, and only seemed to move when it became clear to them that the iceberg was about to be split into pieces! It was fun to watch them diving off the side and into the clear water underneath – and they often swam right in front of the ship after entering the water. We were out on the bow with probably 25% of the passengers on board yelling "Save yourself! Hit the water!" It was great fun. There were several penguins on different icebergs who had to make some pretty quick escapes as well.

We were told during lunch that nobody has landed at Petermann yet this season because of all the ice. Once we got there, we understood completely – although it wasn't technically possible to walk from ice bit to ice bit to shore, it was darn close! It was pretty obvious that zodiacs would not be put into this water / ice field. So we got to experience what we had imagined as the "true" Antarctic experience, pushing through lots of ice as we searched for our next landing. We heard three or four plans about where to go next since we didn't land at Petermann. In the end, we turned around and went back north through the Lemaire Channel and anchored off of Booth Island. There it was determined that we would make a landing after dinner – heading off the ship around 8:30 or 9:00pm. With sunset around 10:45pm (and lots of light even after that), this was deemed to be a good plan for the evening.

After hanging around on the deck for a few hours this afternoon, we returned to our room to relax for a while before dinner. Greg was napping, but when I heard the announcement that several of the Russian crew, including the captain, were taking a dip in the ocean off the starboard gangway, I hopped up and went down to watch. By the time I got there, the captain had been in the water and was already out, but I did see two Russian ladies heading in – one in a bikini. She came out with a parka and pants, stripped those off, walked down the gangway and dove in. There is a crewman, like the one who helps us into and out of the zodiacs standing by fully dressed including a life jacket who helps them in and out of the water onto the gangway. They stay in less than a minute. It's below freezing – like 28 degrees! - and after they come out, there are other crew standing by with towels and jackets to bundle them up. I suspect they head straight for the sauna on deck 1!

After dinner, we did do the shore landing on Booth Island. This is an island that has multiple penguin species all in one place – gentoos, adelies and chinstraps. There weren't that many of the adelies and chinstraps but they're all fun to watch. It was a relatively short landing – off at 9, back at 11pm, and as we returned to the ship the sun was setting over the island, which was pretty nice.

Tomorrow we will be landing in Port Lockroy, which has another post office so we can mail ourselves another postcard. I'm very curious to see how long it takes to arrive, and how much it costs.

Today was one of the most spectacular days we've had on this trip – and there have been some pretty fantastic days. From the "iceberg wrangling" this morning, to the "cathedral" during zodiac cruising, to the spectacular landscapes all afternoon, including the ice filled water, the day had some amazing images. We are hoping our luck continues for our last few days here in Antarctica!

A Leopard Seal - and A Continental Landing

I forgot to mention in yesterday's entry that our zodiac driver, Tom Murphy, was injured after we returned from zodiac cruising yesterday morning. Though we did not witness the incident, we learned that after all passengers had departed our zodiac, a second zodiac driven by Bruce Miller came up to the ship and offloaded its passengers as well. Then, because the seas were rough, the zodiacs were going back to the "new" landing site to pick up the participants who were still onshore, but needed two staff in each zodiac so that one could drive and the other could act as ballast. So Tom's zodiac was lifted to the 5^th deck to put it away for the day with the plan that Tom would ride with Bruce to pick up more participants. Tom was riding in the zodiac (as is typical) as it was being lifted by a crane – there are two attachment cables. Apparently one cable was slack and as a result, when a gust of wind came up, the zodiac was caught in the wind gust and the zodiac was turned essentially vertical. Tom grabbed the other cable and hung on desperately, but wrenched his shoulder and bruised his hand and neck in the process. Remember, Tom can't swim – not that I think it would matter much, because in these frigid waters, I don't think anyone would be able to move their body sufficiently to swim for much more than a minute. In addition, his drybag, the gasoline can, and the zodiac battery all went into the ocean next to Bruce's boat. Because the zodiac was essentially vertical, either the zodiac or a cable were swinging in the wind as well, which forced Bruce to lay down in his zodiac to avoid being struck as well. I'm not sure how they got Tom's zodiac back under control, but apparently they did. Bruce was able to recover the dry bag (which I believe had some of Tom's camera gear in it – he's a well-known photographer so we aren't talking cheap point and shoot equipment here) as well as the gas can, but not the battery. We understand that Tom is doing okay, he's sore but insists that he'll be driving again at Cierva Cove. So for reasons which go beyond just our desire to have good experiences and good photography, we are certainly hoping for improvements to the wind! It turned out Tom was on shore but not driving zodiacs.

We awoke this morning thinking we hadn't yet arrived in Cierva Cove, as the ship seemed to still be moving. But we were wrong – the ship had anchored, but the winds were still up above 20mph. So we pretty quickly decided to bail out of this landing site (we will have another opportunity to visit this site in a couple of days) and cruise down the Gerlache Strait to Cuverville Island. In the meantime, we attended a photography critique lecture. For this lecture, passengers could select images to submit to be critiqued anonymously by Tom Murphy and Rod Planck. It was really interesting to see and hear their takes on the images presented (though we didn't present any). Even for those images that I thought were really good, they identified things that could make them better – and there were some they thought were pretty good just as is.

After lunch, we donned all our gear and headed for the zodiacs to land on Cuverville Island. Once there, we waited for all passengers to get to shore so that we could go out in the first zodiac group. The seas were much calmer and Hugh Rose was our driver. We like Hugh because, as second in charge of the expedition, he's quite a pro when it comes to operational issues, he's an expert at driving the zodiacs, and he's a professional photographer, so we were able to ask photography questions during the ride.

Once on the zodiac, we quickly headed around the corner of the island as we spotted a sailboat which was anchoring nearby. Now, we realize many of you think we are nuts to come to Antarctica – but we're not crazy enough to do it on a sailboat!! They sailed through the Drake Passage from Ushuaia, the route we'll be taking as we make our way home in about a week. But to do it on a sailboat?? No way! It turned out they are skiers from France and they've been here a month. Their goal is to ski on various of the islands near the Antarctic Peninsula, which Ted Cheeseman said is fairly common to do. But it's not like there are ski lodges here, or ski lifts, or nice flat landing spots at the bottom of the slopes, so again, we think they are nuts!

After nosing around the sailboat, we were on the lookout for a leopard seal. And we found one! He was laying on a small iceberg, so we were able to get really close to him. He was sleeping for a while, then he woke up and raised his head, looked around and finally – the money shot! - he started yawning! This is exciting because the leopard seal has some pretty impressive teeth and a bright pink mouth. Yes, we got a bunch of pictures but won't have time to post tonight.

The ice formations that we saw near Cuverville were very impressive – lots of good sized icebergs of various shades of blue and blue-green and white. They are a lot of fun to see. After zodiacing for nearly two hours, we headed back to the landing site and wandered around the island for a bit. This is a gentoo penguin colony, but it's pretty small. So we finally headed back to the ship for dinner, as we knew we'd have yet another landing after dinner.

During dinner, the ship repositioned to Neko Harbor. Then we took the zodiacs to shore and landed – on the continent!! We realize that we've been on this trip for 3 full weeks now, but this is the first time we've actually set foot on the continent. And it turns out, this is the only landing that's actually a continental landing. Most of the landings in Antarctica are on the nearby smaller islands, where many of the penguin colonies are located. Many times, these islands are a very short distance from the continent, but we were pretty excited to actually land there today.

The Gerlache Strait and Neko Harbor, are simply gorgeous. There are towering mountains coming right up to the water's edge, and glaciers covering most of them. Yet at the landing site itself, there is a fair amount of land that is covered in rocks, not snow. Snow would be better because the rocks are covered in guano. It's reddish-brown and very pungent. Waterproof gear anyone??

We had been warned that the glacier comes all the way to the beach in one place, and that if it ever calves, it has been known to create a small "tsunami" where the water rushes away from the calving glacier. Then we heard a significant "boom" and were told that four out of five times, the movement was inside the glacier and nothing we'd see. So off we went to explore toward the end of the glacier, not taking this warning all that seriously.

Then it calved. There was a big boom and we looked up in time to see huge chunks coming off the front of the section we had been looking at, adding more ice to the water – and sure enough, sending a small wave – a tsunami, if you will – headed our way. We took a couple of photos and headed for higher ground. It was not a significant enough event to be dangerous to us, but it was easy to see how it could be! On our zodiac back to the ship later, Ted Cheeseman said he'd been giving the tsunami warning for 20 years and had never seen it happen...well, now he has.

This site is very calm, which bodes well for another landing here in the morning, as our landing this evening was pretty short. The glacier-covered mountains are reflected in the water of the channel and it's beautiful. Now if the low cloud cover would lift, it would be perfect.

After about an hour and a half on shore, we returned to the ship and have a 5:30am wake-up call so we can head back to this landing site, do some zodiac cruising in this harbor as well, and then head further south down the peninsula.

A Windy Morning on Paulet Island

This morning we had another landing at Paulet Island. All participants were taken to shore, and from there we could hang around at the landing site and walk to the Nodenskjold hut (a remnant from the expedition of about a hundred years ago), or we could go on a hike to the top of the island with Marlene Planck and Gail Cheeseman, which was slated to stake 2.5 – 3 hours, or we could go zodiac cruising. We chose zodiac cruising, since our prior experiences with zodiacing have been fun and we didn't want to spend essentially the entire landing on a hike. In the zodiac, we hoped to see some penguins and possibly seals on the icebergs, and possibly penguins coming onto or off of the icebergs.

It was warmer today – about 36 degrees for the air temperature, with the water around 30 or so. So that's cold spray in the zodiac, and the waters were a bit rough to start. After breakfast at 7am, we started landing around 8am. On the way to the landing, we were in a zodiac driven by Doug Cheeseman, and heard a radio announcement by Hugh Rose that drivers should go inside the line of icebergs – that is, between the icebergs and the shoreline. So Doug quickly moved us, where we promptly ran into a bit of brash ice in the water, and had to go very slowly so as not to damage the zodiac or its motor. We were pushing aside some large chunks of ice (not the majore icebergs), and even split some a bit.

By 8:30, everyone was on shore so we quickly joined a group of people in a zodiac run by Tom Murphy since we knew he'd have a photographic focus. Plus, Tom doesn't know how to swim, so he jokes that we should ride in his zodiac because he's very careful not to flip it! Of course, if you did fall out, he also says he won't go in after you...

In the zodiac, we quickly motored to some beautiful icebergs with a variety of blue colors. The colors range from almost royal blue to turquoise, or more greenish, and some have brown pieces or lines from when they picked up sediment along their way down the glaciers. Here again, the icebergs have unique features, including shapes and textures of the ice. We saw more icebergs with holes in them – either at the water line or farther up – including one through which we saw another zodiac. Shortly after we got into the zodiac for the cruising, the wind and waves got a bit rougher than expected, so there was much discussion amongst the staff about what to do (via the radios they all carry). First, they decided to abandon the original landing site and move it closer to the ship since the original landing site was farther from the ship across some rougher water. But there continued to be discussion about whether the landing remained safe, including the expected difficulty of returning to the ship at the gangway, so the landing was ended early. We were in the zodiac the whole time, so we were basically hanging around in the water, going from iceberg to iceberg first in some bigger waves and then in a calmer section of water. At one point, the waves we were in approached 5 feet high, but those didn't last very long. We were actually in relatively calm water toward the end. By 10:30 we were all back on board the ship.

Our zodiac had one passenger who covered his cameras with grocery store plastic bags, and at one point, one flew out of the zodiac and into the ocean. Thankfully, it floats, so we circled back and Greg stuck his hand into the water to pick it out. It's good to know we were able to avoid adding to any pollution (not that it was our fault).

The waves were pretty bouncy, so it was tough to get many good shots. We also had some significant spray from the zodiac going up and down in the waves, so we put the cameras away for probably 25% of the two hour ride. Greg then got out his GoPro waterproof video camera and took some footage with that. We'll post it after we return.

After returning to the ship, we had lunch and then hung out on the bridge for a little while. We are going through the Active Sound and heading toward the northeast end of the peninsula. We had hoped to do a landing at Brown Bluff, which is a continental landing, but the wind is blowing around 40-50 mph, so that has been scratched. We're now in the Antarctic Sound heading northwest, and we'll head down the southwest side of the peninsula today / overnight and should be in Cierva Cove for more zodiac cruising tomorrow. We're hoping for calmer seas and good skies – which could include a few clouds to give us good photographic light. But no rain please! We're hoping for leopard seals (and other seals) on the ice, along with minke and humpback whales in the water. It's a pretty highly regarded site for zodiacing so we are looking forward to it.

Our weather has been good throughout the trip, but Antarctica has been a bit more challenging with a few more places with wind. We are hoping things improve over the next few days. For now, we're relaxing on board and attended a lecture by Doug Cheeseman on some of the Antarctic invertebrates, which was pretty interesting. Doug's talks are funny – they are sort of stream of consciousness talks with pictures! After dinner tonight, we're hoping that the seas calm down a bit again and keeping our fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Photos - Monday, January 16

Here are some photos from our spectacular day today:

1 - The Adelie Penguin colony with our ship and icebergs in the background. We finally saw the namesake penguin for the blog!

2 - Some of the spectacular icebergs - note the beautiful turquoise color against the blue ocean.

3 - A humpback whale as she is just coming out of the water - see how clear the water is!

4 - A group of 3 whales who are blowing - with a rainbow!

5 - Sunset...who could ask for anything more? It's now 11:25 and still pretty light out...

Thar She Blows!

MAMBO SAWA SAWA! SUPER FANTASTIC!! I asked Doug Cheeseman what was better than Mambo Sawa Sawa – and Ted said just say it louder. We were expecting to be at sea most of the day, reaching light pack ice by about 4pm. So we slept until about 6:30 then looked out the window to see if we could see any ice, and there was a nice sized iceberg floating by. After breakfast, we decided to head to the bridge with our binoculars but didn't bring jackets because we thought we'd only be popping out briefly for photos, if at all. Well, we were wrong.

Beginning about 8:30, there were several groups of humpback whales playing very nearby the ship. And when I say they were near, they were basically touching it at times. They were spouting, bringing their heads above water, showing a pectoral fin, presenting their fluke (tail)...Words pretty much can't describe how fantastic it was. There were several whales playing together, so we repositioned the ship to stay nearer to them, and then they kept swimming closer. After we were with the first group for a while, we decided perhaps we should get our jackets and gloves after all – smart move. The first group of about 4-5 whales eventually moved off, and we thought it had been a great show and we'd now continue south. We were wrong again. Another, larger group of whales then approached, so we repositioned the ship again to stay with them – and got the same behavior; the whales approached the ship, swam on the port side, just off the bow, on the starboard side. We could hear them breathing and it is spectacular!

It was a beautiful, cold day here – the air temperature was about 26 and the water is about 30. The water is incredibly clear – so clear, we could see the whales in their entirety under water. The whites of their pectoral fins are particularly bright. We took probably 1,500 photos just this morning.

In addition to the whales, we had arrived in Antarctic waters, so we'd gotten a lot more ince in the water. Not just little icebergs or very occasional icebergs as we've seen up to this point; the landscape is covered in them! From one end of the horizon to the next, it is dotted with icebergs between the ship and the nearby islands. It's impossible to photograph it to do it justice (but of course we've tried). Some are giant tabular icebergs, the size of city blocks, which are tall (50-100 feet), wide and very flat on top. Some are smaller chunks that have broken off other icebergs, or developed from sea ice. Some are all white, some are dimpled like golf balls, some have blue striations, or darker colors from where they've dragged across glaciers. There were some that had "caves," some with arches large enough to paddle a kayak through...No two are alike!

Icebergs are a favorite hangout for penguins and we hoped to see a juvenile emperor penguin (the adults are found only inland on the continent for breeding and are all in the ocean foraging for food by now) – and we were not disappointed. We did in fact find one juvenile emperor penguin sharing a good-sized iceberg with an adelie penguin. So of course we repositioned the ship again to circle back for another look. It was terrific!

In addition to this special emperor, we also saw multiple icebergs which had groups of adelie penguins on them – so we've now seen the namesake penguin for our blog. In fact, we had the potential to see 7 different penguin species on this entires journey, and now we've seen them all: rockhopper, gentoo, macaroni, king, chinstrap, adelie and emperor. We had some penguin activity on the icebergs, where they sometimes ran or slid across on their stomachs, and in some cases they either jumped or fell into the ocean from the edge of the iceberg. We hope to do zodiac cruising tomorrow to see more of the penguins on the icebergs.

Before we knew it, 4 hours had flown by and it was time for lunch. We popped downstairs and learned that because of the fantastic conditions, including the terrific weather and low winds, we'd discontinue our journey south into the pack ice and do our first landing at Paulet Island. We had a quick landing before dinner – we could either actually go to the island and walk around the Adelie penguin colony where there are 80,000 nesting pairs, or we could zodiac cruise. We chose to land, and had a good time walking near the colony, though it was a fairly contained landing site, but then again, we only had 2 hours to spend there. Then it was back to the ship for dinner and the plan was to zodiac cruise after dinner from about 8:30 to 10:30 or 11pm (sunset here is around 10:45 tonight, not that it gets all that dark). But the winds had picked up by dinner time, so we scratched the zodiac cruising this evening and the new plan was to ship cruise through the beautiful ice formations near Paulet Island. The goal is to land again on Paulet tomorrow morning but for the first time we didn't have a daily schedule presented to us at dinner as it's pretty uncertain what tomorrow will bring weather-wise.

By the way, some of you may have read about an earthquake that occurred in the South Shetland Islands near Elephant Island yesterday morning. It was a 6.7 magnitude quake – and one fellow passenger said he'd read reports that there were actually two quakes. Don't worry – it was a fair distance from where we were / are – we are on the east side of the peninsula and the quake was on the west side. So we didn't feel anything and are not at risk at all.

We've just returned from watching the sunset – for the first time – and it was gorgeous. Overall, this was one of our best days on the trip so far, as echoed by several of the staff as well. Between the huge number of whales, the quantity and variety of icebergs, and the gorgeous sunset, this was a truly spectacular day!

No Ice Yet...

The morning schedule today was similar to yesterday's, with the wake-up call at 7:30am, breakfast at 8:00am, and lectures starting at 9:30am. We set our clocks back an hour again last night so now we're back on the same timezone as when we left Ushuaia (i.e., GMT-3). The seas have calmed a bit since yesterday making it easier to walk around the ship and probably giving some relief to anyone suffering seasickness. Many people have been avoiding the lecture room since it is a large windowless room at the bow of the ship and does move around quite a bit in the large swells. You can also hear when the large swells hit the bow of the ship – they are big "booms."

But we've enjoyed a number of lectures today. The first was by Dag Nevestad called "Why Did Scott Die?" and was about the race to the South Pole between Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundson. Amundson won, and was all around better prepared. Scott did make it to the Pole, but his entire team died before making it home again, largely due to poor planning and poor decisions made along the way. The most significant of these errors was likely planning provisions for a party of 4 men, and then adding a fifth without increasing the provisions. Bringing a library of books rather than appropriate food for the ponies (another bad idea) and dogs were also contributing factors.

Then we had some time to relax and finally read our books for a bit, ate lunch, and relaxed some more until 3pm when we attended a talk by Doug Cheeseman, which was really more photos of places we expect to visit in Antarctica itself. We are hoping to find good ice by tomorrow evening – sea ice, icebergs, etc. - of interesting shapes and colors. Then we hope to make landing on Paulet Island on Tuesday morning. But it's all very weather and wind dependent so we'll have to see.

Another talk this afternoon was by Joan Boothe on the discovery of the continent itself. Most of the information was what she'd written in her book, but she has a way of bringing the history alive and adding a bit more color to her talk than is in her book. Anyway, it was a very interesting talk to be sure.

After dinner, we attended the second photo slide show of the trip, with any photographer who wants to submit photos entitled to submit up to 5 each (we submitted 10 between the two of us). Then Bruce Miller, a photographer on staff, puts them together for everyone to see. As with the first presentation, there are some incredible photos and some that are just hilarious or full of character.

Tomorrow we are at sea again so expect to attend a few more lectures. There is also a photographic critique that will be held, where two of the professional photographers on staff, Rod Planck and Tom Murphy, will critique whatever photos participants want to submit. They will give perspective on what worked and didn't work in the photo from exposure, composition, lighting, etc. It should be interesting, but we're not going to submit any photos for that; instead, we plan to learn from others!

We continue to feel good (and lucky). We spoke to the ship's doctor today, a lovely woman from South Africa, who said she estimates about 50% of the passengers (and some staff, including Ted Cheeseman) are feeling seasick to one degree or another. Meals are definitely less crowded, but not as sparse as we had expected. However, you are advised to eat something light even if feeling ill, so I suspect people are taking that advice. Several people have said they basically have a meal then return to their cabin to lay down as that's when they feel the best. We are hoping that the seas calm for our last day out, which they should as we approach more ice in the water. Ted has said that the crossing from South Georgia to where we are now has been the roughest he's ever experienced – but it doesn't seem all that bad to us! We expect relatively calm seas around the peninsula – so the wild card remains the Drake Passage for the return to home.

Heading for Pack Ice

Today we slept in, plus we moved the clocks back an hour. Onboard ship, we had reset our clocks to be an hour ahead of the "official" time on South Georgia. This was so that when we had early wake-up calls, they were only early, like at 4:30, and not crazy, like at 2:30 or 3:30! So in addition to not having a wake-up call until 7:30, because we gained an hour, it was like sleeping until 8:30 – bliss!

We are having an easy day on board today. After breakfast, we made our photo selections to put into the participant slide show which I believe will be shown tomorrow evening. We also attended a talk by Joan Boothe on the Nordenskjold expedition, which involved a ship that was also trapped in the ice and sank. It was headed by a Norwegian guy, which is probably why it's not so well-known to us in the US. But it's an interesting story in which the total group is split into three smaller groups – one with 3 men, one with 6 men and one with the other 19 men I believe. They are all stranded on different parts or islands near the peninsula, yet all decide they need to take action on their own and happen to meet at the same time, so all are rescued. Mine is a crude retelling of what's a pretty interesting story, and Joan really brought things alive.

Then we went up on the bridge and watched for whales – we saw several blows off in the distance but not any actual whale bodies or tails. But it's always interesting to check things out on the bridge (plus it's warmer than our room!).

Following lunch, we posted some photos, so you should see those now, and then attended a few more lectures / slide shows this afternoon. The first was by Rod Planck on some photography on and around the Antarctic Peninsula. He really has some fantastic shots, and we are hoping for good things as well. Next we heard from Hugh Rose with a wrap-up of his lecture on glaciology and a preview of the places we're planning to stop at in Antarctica and the particular species to look for at each site. Finally, we heard a talk by Nick Mooney on telemetry (tracking penguins and marine mammals as they roam about the ocean to understand their range and ocean depth).

I forgot to mention yesterday that as we were coming back from Cooper Bay on Ted's zodiac, as we were approaching the gangway, we had a bit of a swell in the water. So the zodiac fell below the level of the gangway and came back up again and when it did, the gangway popped one of the chambers in the zodiac, deflating it. We had learned earlier that the tubes of the zodiac are not one big "bag" but rather a series of them linked by "doors" which are closed when the zodiac is sailing. This way, if one of the chambers is burst, the zodiac remains afloat rather than sinking. Apparently this chambering method was developed after the sinking of the Titanic. When a different ship sank in Antarctic waters a few years ago, it was built with the chambers but the doors were left open. Thus, when the ship ran aground, all chambers flooded and it sank. Apparently the lesson was not learned well enough!

The seas have calmed a bit today, and swells are now 2-3 meters rather than 3-5 meters. It's definitely a calmer ride, which we felt as early as this morning. We are still feeling good and hope this continues. Our room is a bit chilly. Just about the only time we've been cold is after a hike where we've sweated a lot, shed layers, and then stopped moving on the top of a hill, or when we are in our room during the daytime. It's fine at night, or maybe we just have good justification to be under the nice warm blanket then! We've been given a space heater to help take the chill off which we're occasionally using now.

Even though we're not doing a landing today, and got quite a lot of rest last night, we are still a bit sleepy. Perhaps it's the effect of having our bodies constantly adjusting to counteract the effect of the swells. I told Greg earlier that I could feel my thigh muscles working just sitting on the bed trying not to fall over at times! We definitely need the "exercise" since we can't seem to pass up desserts. Our favorites so far have been choclate mousse and a fruit napoleon made with phyllo dough and cream – yum!

Tonight at dinner we learned that we are going to sail past the South Orkneys in the morning, skipping our planned landing, and head for the sea ice south of Paulet Island, our first landing site on the east side of the Peninsula. So we will be at sea tomorrow and Monday and expect to see good ice by Monday afternoon / evening in the Weddell Sea. Then it's back up and down the west side of the peninsula, along with nearby islands. 

Photos!

Attached are a few more photos from our days on South Georgia Island, which we have now left.

One is a South Georgia shag in flight at Shag's Rock from our first day on South Georgia. The skies were cloudy, making for some good lighting.

One photo is a brown "okum boy" or a less than year old King penguin at St. Andrew's Bay. This is a photo of the penguin in front of one of the mountains at that site - a "pose" we had learned during our photo workshop with Tom Murphy.

Then we have a picture of an elephant seal flipping sand up onto his body. It's not clear whether he does that to stay warm or to cool off, but in any event, it was cool the way we caught the sand "in flight."

Finally, we have attached a photo of a chinstrap penguin (which should be obvious from the white head and the black line going under his chin). We haven't been to the big chinstrap colonies yet; those are on the Antarctic peninsula. But there is a colony near where this was taken, so we suspect he was "visiting" the site we were at.

Enjoy!

Fjords and Macaronis

This morning started early again, with a 6am wake-up call so that we could see as we did a "ship cruise" through the Drygalski Fjord. Ship cruising means that the ship is getting us close to whatever it is that we want to see, particularly in places where we couldn't land. In this case, the fjord is at the junction of two tectonic plates, and the fjord is very deep between them. There are multiple glaciers on the mountains which line the fjord, which were quite beautiful. Most of the glaciers on the sides of the fjord (which is essentially a long, relatively straight cove, in this case it's about 6 miles long) surrounded by mountains on either side. At the end of the fjord is a glacier that comes right down to the water. They say the fjord has gotten 2km longer in the last 10-15 years as the glacier has receded. The ice was quite beautiful – some was blue in places – and there was more ice floating in the water as well. We're at the southern end of South Georgia and it's been interesting to see how things change.

After the ship cruise, we had breakfast and then geared up for our landing in Cooper Bay. This landing site has a pretty small beach so the attraction is to hike through yet more tussock grasses, fending off more fur seals, all in an effort to see the nesting macaroni penguins. What we didn't realize was that hiking up was only the first part – and it wasn't nearly as challenging as yesterday's hike up the tussock – but then once on top, we had to hike down on the other side to get close to the colony. Hiking down is much harder on the knees, and it's often tough to see how big that next step is going to be. We've realized the value of hiking poles on this trip, and fortunately the staff usually has hiking poles out which are there so you have something with which to fend off the seals. If a fur seal growls at you or starts to charge with his mouth open and teeth bared, you point the pole at him and hope he stops. If he doesn't, they say you should tickle his whiskers, which are apparently quite sensitive. Luckily, it's never gotten quite that far for us, but we have had them stop just at the end of the pole (which is probably 4 feet long). That may not sound all that close, but trust me, it is quite close enough!

So anyway, after the hiking, during which of course we get too hot, so we had to stop at some point to strip off various layers of clothing, hats, gloves, etc., we did arrive at the macaroni penguin colony. They are interesting birds because they have the bright yellow / orange plumage on their heads, and they are quite the climbers. We were about 200 feet above sea level, and so were they. So they essentially come out of the ocean, and proceed to walk / hop up the cliffs to make their nests and hang out. We did see some chicks, but not sure any of the photos were all that great. After about an hour and a half at the colony, we decided to head back to the landing in hopes of doing a zodiac cruise along the bottom of the colony. We'd done one a couple days prior at another macaroni colony that worked very well. But by now it was only 30 minutes until the last zodiac so we got only a brief cruise on our way back to the ship with Ted Cheeseman at the helm of our zodiac. During our zodiac back to the ship, we had multiple porpoising seals behind us that were a lot of fun to watch. They like to play in the wake of the zodiac.

During lunch the ship was battened down for sea voyage and the seasickness bags are placed on the railings in the hallway (which is never a good sign – it means rough seas ahead!). We have yet to experience seasickness but it's clear that many people are not quite so lucky. Most people take some medication – either a scopolamine patch, dilantin, dramamine, a relief band that you wear like a watch, or something else to stave it off.

After lunch, we headed to the bridge to watch the waves and see any interesting wildlife which might be flying around. There were some light-mantled sooty albatross which are beautiful, along with prions, black-browed albatross, etc. But what was more fun to watch was the people standing on the bow getting sprayed by the water coming up as we broke through the waves. Then we saw a couple of pretty large tabular icebergs. One was off the port side (the left side), and was relatively tall and kind of pointed on top The other was more directly in front and just to the starboard side (the right side) and this one was very flat – you could just barely see it floating above the water. We expect to see more in the coming days.

Seas right now are 3-5 meter swells (that's about 10-16 feet) so it's certainly rougher than it's been so far. The ship is doing more pitching front to back whereas previously it was more rolling side to side. If you're seasick, I'm not sure which is worse. So we dumped our photos onto a hard drive (we're up to 5,900 so far, many less than our pre-trip estimate) and took a nap this afternoon, but when we heard there were cookies in the bar, we hopped right up to get some! But let's just say that the dining room was not nearly so crowded this evening for dinner!

We are making our way to the South Orkneys, where we hope to make a landing sometime on Sunday. We had expected to arrive Sunday morning but now with the wind at our bow, in addition to making a rougher voyage, it makes for a slower voyage. So we get to experience the rolling ship for longer. At any rate, the schedule for tomorrow is quite light. Breakfast, lunch and dinner with lectures to be announced, if any.

Keep your fingers crossed that the weather improves soon and that we stay seasick-free! With the schedule light tomorrow, we should be able to go through our photos from the last few days and post a few more.

Hike for the Chocolate

Well, the wind finally died down enough for us to make a landing. After a hot lunch on board ship, we began boarding zodiacs around 2pm for a shorter day on shore. This is a site where there are a lot of King penguins right on the beach, along with rivers of glacial melt and the most elephant seals that we've seen so far. We heard that there was activity which could lead to an egg exchange, so we headed straight for the colony. The King penguins typically have one egg, which is balance on the feet of one parent while the other is out feeding for about 8-10 days. So one has the egg on its feet tucked up into its pouch while the other is gone. Then the second parent returns and they need to move the egg to the second parent so the first one can go out and feed. This is a process that happens very quickly when it finally happens, but can take hours for them to be comfortable enough to do. This makes sense; after all, the first penguin has developed a relationship with this egg and wants to make sure it's protected so it's a high stress time for the birds. With the help of Jim Danzenbaker, one of the naturalists on board, we were able to identify the couple with the egg that was going to be exchanged. We did see when the one bird lifted its pouch and exposed the egg, but it was quickly hidden again. Then the penguin which had returned from feeding laid down – perhaps to nap – so we decided no egg exchange was imminent and we left.

By this time, it was nearly 3pm, and we wanted to join the hike up the mountains behind us. What's interesting here is that often the mountains come very close to the beach, resulting in narrow beaches – this one was maybe 100 yards wide – and hills and mountains very close by. So we strolled down the beach and up the steep tussock grasses, past elephant seals (which don't attack) and fur seals (which will at least threaten to). The hike up the tussock grasses was a bit steep and muddy, so keeping our footing was sometimes challenging, especially when trying to avoid the seals. Hiking through tussock is like making your way through 6 foot tall grasses which grow out of 2 foot tall by 2 foot diameter round bases, surrounded by growling dogs – and it's muddy to boot. Doesn't that sound like fun? Once out of the tussock grasses, the going was a bit easier. By then, we were hiking on more boggy areas, sometimes where our feet sank several inches into the ground (again, I just cannot overstate the value of having waterproof boots!). Continuing up the mountain, we transitioned to hiking on glaciated rock remnants, meaning there are lots of relatively flat rock pieces scattered everywhere – no other grass or dirt to be seen. It's a bit tricky because there is so much loose rock and not a lot of firm footing.

We finally came to a relative high point where the chocolate was distributed (we deserve some reward for the hike after all!). Then about half the group continued up a final peak – Greg went, but I went only partway and then decided I'm on vacation, not running a marathon! Of course, Greg got more chocolate on top...

After I walked down, I waited for the group to return with another woman (Vicky Cooper), but then we decided to head back together because we couldn't see anyone anymore. We eventually met up with them as they came down as well. The "fun" part was when the leader (Hugh Rose) stopped at the dead rat he found, which Greg helpfully marked on the GPS (along with the rat burrows and trails Hugh had spotted earlier). This is a section of South Georgia which has not had the rat eradication yet, so it's not unexpected to find any. But I could have easily left without seeing that stiff dead rat! They do like to monitor the locations of the rat activity, hence the GPS coordinates.

Once we returned to shore, we took some photos of the elephant seals lounging on the beach throwing sand on themselves. Soon it was time to return to the ship for dinner and a very well deserved night's sleep.

A Delay at Gold Harbor and Responses to Comments

Today was supposed to begin with breakfast at 4:30am and the first zodiacs to shore at 5:30am, with all day being spent at this landing site. However, the weather had a different idea. We were anchored in St. Andrew's Bay yesterday through the evening, and had intended to pull the anchor and head here sometime early this morning. But the anchor failed around midnight last night, meaning it started dragging along the bottom of the bay. So the captain pulled it up and headed here early. We awoke around 1:30am (Lori slept until 3) with the rolling and pitching ship, and knew things were a bit rough. Thankfully, we still have not experienced any seasickness, even with no medication or other alternatives, for which we are extremely grateful! So rather than dress and head straight for breakfast as we did with the last landing, I went downstairs around 4:40 to learn that the landing was delayed. At that time, the anchor was not holding in Gold Harbor so the captain was trying to get the ship stable before we did anything else. This meant that we could go back to sleep for about 2 hours knowing that nothing much was happening – a mixed blessing, but the sleep was definitely welcome!

Around 6:45am, we got up and headed for breakfast, which was ending at 7:30. We learned that the morning was pretty much out for landings, as the wind is steady around 25-30 knots, gusting to 45-50 knots. I think that's roughly equivalent to mph but am not sure (mph are a bit more than knots). Anyway, that's much too windy to make a landing, especially since the first step in making a landing is to have a crane lower the zodiacs into the ocean alongside the ship. Typically, a staff member rides the zodiac down while it's on the crane, and that's clearly far too dangerous this morning. The winds seem to be calming down a bit, though, so we are still hopeful to make a shortened landing this afternoon.

After breakfast, Greg and I went out to the sixth deck to see just how windy it was outside. It's pretty incredibly windy! We were hanging on to the railings the whole time, and at certain points, we'd turn the corner to go around to a different side of the ship and really couldn't move, it was so windy. So we agree that it's not zodiac appropriate weather! In the meantime, Greg's attending a lecture on whaling from north to south by Dag Nevestad, and I'm catching up with some of my writing. I thought I'd take the opportunity to answer some of the questions that have come up in the comments – I keep meaning to and then forget each evening.

First, the food. We have a full complement at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Greg eats a larger breakfast than I've ever seen him do in the 25 years I've known him – fruit, cereal, eggs, coffee and juice. I'm eating more at breakfast as well, usually two eggs – they're either cooked sunny side up, hard boiled or scrambled (chef's choice) – plus toast, fruit and orange juice. We've been impressed with the fruit onboard, as two weeks in, we're still getting fresh fruit every day. For lunches, it's a sandwich, brownie / cookie and candy bar for lunch if we're onshore, or a buffet with various salads (pasta, lettuce with dressing, tomatoes with cucumubers or cheese, or various other salads), soup, and then usually 2 hot entrees. It's good but heavier than normal for us. Dinner starts with an appetizer at your table, plus a cheese board that you can serve yourself from. Then there are three entrees to choose from – one meat, one fish, one vegetarian. Unfortunately, most entrees have some sort of sauce on top, again not typical for us. Finally, there is dessert each night. We bought two bottles of wine to bring on board, so we drink that occasionally. Greg's had a couple of Cokes but I've been Diet Coke free for 2 weeks straight now (which could be a new record) – I'm drinking lots of water instead, as it's pretty dry here.

The beds are pretty comfortable – or maybe we're just so exhausted that we wouldn't notice if they weren't. Now that I think about it, I originally thought they were pretty firm, but now we're out like a light every night so I guess they're "good enough." We have a sheet and a heavy blanket that it's usually too warm to use most nights. My bed is by the window, which has curtains, but as the ship moves, so do the curtains, so light sometimes streams in. Duct taping the curtains to the walls in a couple of spots has helped! Greg's tucked away behind the armoire so in more of a "dark corner" than me.

As for the zodiac rides, one of my (probably irrational) fears was that I'd be riding in the zodiac and fall out. That's never happened with the Cheeseman's, which is reassuring! We climb in and sit on the pontoon – the big side of it, essentially. There are ropes to hang onto, if you wish (and I do!). The rides haven't been too bad, though two days ago as we were landing at shore a big wave came and washed into the back of one, drenching the people in the back. Waterproof gear just cannot be overrated here! We've been lucky that we've only gotten sprayed by the water from the zodiac riding through the ocean, not much more than that. The ocean water is at 0 Celsius (32 F) so would not be pleasant to feel on your skin. Nearly all landings have been wet, so we swing our legs over the edge of the zodiac and into 6 – 12 inches of water usually as we make our way ashore. The more dangerous part of a zodiac ride is actually getting back onto the boat at the gangway. Sometimes the zodiac is bouncing up and down in the water so you have to time your step off the zodiac and onto the platform at the bottom of the gangway (which is essentially steep stairs on the outside of the ship). But there is a sailor from the ship and the zodiac driver assisting so it's not so bad...for me anyway! Greg has our drybag filled with probably 30-40 pounds of camera gear usually so it's a steep climb up the gangway with a heavy pack for him!

In a funny coincidence, our next door neighbor, Nat Bilsky, knows a gentleman named Paul Dalrymple, who was big in the Antarctic circles a few years back (he's about 85 now I think). Paul knows a woman named Joan Booth, who just published a book about the early years of exploration in Antarctica. We purchased Joan's book before the trip and have enjoyed reading it. Joan was told about us (that friends of a friend would be on board) and we knew she would be here and we met very early on (and sent regards from Paul). Joan is very knowledgeable and it's been fun to see how we connect through those "six degrees of separation."

As for the landings, you can do whatever you want within the boundaries of when they are running zodiacs as that is quite an operation. So about half to two-thirds of the participants do the early landings (or would if we had them) while others wait a bit. Zodiacs return to the ship often throughout the day, at least hourly, so you don't have to stay on shore the whole day. Yesterday was a perfect example – when the weather got pretty windy at St. Andrew's Bay, some people went back to the ship around 2pm but we stayed and the winds died down, leaving us on one of the last zodiacs again. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly an entire day can pass with us on land the whole time.

While it's not light here all the time, sunrise is around 4:30 and sunset around 10:30 (I'm guessing...we never see sunset!). We are on an artificial time zone now, 5 hours ahead of Chicago (GMT -1) whereas the folks who work on South Georgia are at GMT-2 (4 hours ahead of Chicago). They did this so that early landings could be at 5:30 instead of 4:30 – a bit of a trick to get us to go to bed perhaps. We woke up this morning to check about the landing, and did take the time to look out our cabin window at the sunrise, which was beautiful. Not beautiful enough to make me want to go on deck in the howling winds to photograph it though!

The penguin species are all different and pretty easily distinguished. As the name implies, King penguins are larger than nearly all others (except the Emperors, which I don't think we'll see). The macaronis are a larger version of the rockhoppers, and the gentoos are probably in the middle size-wise. We've seen 2 or 3 chinstrap penguins now, and expect more in Antarctica.

Ah, the fur seals...they are very territorial, as they probably should be. At the more northern landing sites on South Georgia, there are huge numbers of them, and they're laying on the beach and braying nearly constantly (as are the penguins – these are not quiet islands). So I suppose they become aggressive in fighting off anyone (human or seal) they think is treading into their space. There have been fewer of them on the more recent landings, with not many (but a few who charged) yesterday. It's a welcome relief! Yesterday, there were two seals trying to get through a line of penguins and the penguins kept pecking at them (though I don't know if they ever really made contact). I almost felt sorry for them until they started charging us again...

The hiking we're doing has been great, but it's true we weren't expecting quite so much of it. But here again, it's done at our option – you could easily stay at the landing site and get some good shots and experience these places without doing quite so much hiking. In some sites, like St. Andrew's Bay and Salibury Plains, you really do have to go up the hills to get the views of the penguin colonies spread out below you. There's just no other way to see them, but it's not usually that difficult. We view the hiking as a replacement for our gym workouts and hope they compensate for the meals we're having on board.

We haven't seen any rats but we did see lots of reindeer. The rats are noctural (hallelujah!) so not usually out while we are around. Evidence of rats is probably easy to spot if you know what you're looking for, but I don't and I'd rather ignore the possibility and focus on the penguins! I don't know if I clarified this earlier, but when we were in Grytviken, we learned more about the rat eradication program from South Georgia Historic Trust staff who came on board the ship with the Customs officer when we arrived at Grytviken. They also mentioned that the reindeer will be eradicated next year I believe, as they need to get rid of them before the rat program can be successful because the reindeer will eat the rat poison (which means it won't be there to kill the rats) and it will kill the reindeer in a way that makes them suffer, which is not acceptable. Apparently people are less concerned about killing the rats in a way that makes them suffer – they basically bleed out internally, just as with the mouse poison we use at home. Reindeer will likely be killed by snipers or via a roundup and slaughter. It's a shame, but they are really ruining lots of the land for the endemic species and the goal is to get more birds to return and breed here again.

We do hope to make a landing yet this afternoon. The other option apparently could have been to continue to the site scheduled for tomorrow, Cooper Bay and Dragalski Fjord, but the wind is blowing the wrong way to get into the fjord today, and the captain believes this is the best place to stay – in this protected bay – while waiting for the winds to die down. We were told if we were on open ocean sailing to the next site in this wind, at least half of the passengers would be seasick. And it's a beautiful cove to hang out in anyway, plus it gives us a bit of a rest. It's good that we were at St. Andrew's yesterday as today we'd probably have no chance of a landing and yesterday was truly spectacular there. We've always known that landings are planned but not guaranteed, and we've been incredibly lucky so far, so are counting our blessings.

Keep the comments coming (yes we can see them and are enjoying them) and we'll keep blogging!