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.
Another day in paradise..........
ReplyDeleteDonna Says: In response to Lisa's Another Day in Paradise, it sounds way too scary to me to be in paradise. But you sound like you're enjoying it and that's what counts. It really does have to be the most unusual trip I've ever heard of. All is well here, and very cold out. Alas, it's winter, but much colder than where you are.
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