Antarctica - Day 12 - Part 2

MONDAY, DECEMBER 9TH

We safely got out of the harbor and made our way to our next landing of the day at Paulet Island. While we were underway, lunch was served and it felt really good to be back in the warmth of the ship. I even had a couple of cups of hot chocolate to help warm me up.

Paulet is a circular island, about 1.0 mile in diameter, lying 3 miles SE of Dundee  Island, off
the NE end of the Antarctic Peninsula. Paulet is the site of an enormous Adélie penguin
colony. Paulet consists of a distinct volcanic cone, 1,158 feet high.

In February 1903  a stone hut was built in  by shipwreck  survivors from the Swedish Antarctic
Expedition led by Otto Nordenskiöld, together with the grave of an expedition member, and the cairn
built on the highest point of the island to draw the attention of rescuers, thankfully this story
ended well with the rescue of the totality of the crew by the  Argentinean  Corbeta  Uruguay.  In 
1972  this  hut  was  declared  Historic  Site  and Monument # 41 by the Antarctic Treaty System
(ATS).

This island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because it supports a large
breeding colony of about 100,000 pairs of Adelié penguins.

Here are photos from the day, including a few that show just how many penguins there were here. They stretched on for as far as the eye could see. 

One funny story from the afternoon is that I was trapped on the beach for close to 20 minutes, I walked up on a group of penguins that were waiting to go into the water and stopped the 10 feet away as required and while I was there waiting for them to decide what to do, another group of penguins came out of the water directly behind me, and then they basically just stood around me preening and shaking the water off, and one even decided to lay down and take a bit of a nap.  Since I couldn't really move without breaking the rule on approaching them, I just took a knee on the beach and enjoyed watching them up close like that.  Other people seemed to get a kick out of me being stuck there as a few later told me they took photos of me trapped there.  LOL

Here is another collection of Penguin photos and a few Blue-Eyed Shags which also nested here and mixed in with the 100,000 penguins nicely.

We stayed on the island and watched the Penguins for a couple of hours and then it was time to start to head back to the ship.  Dinner tonight was at 19:00.

At 20:30 Monika, the expedition leader, gave an introduction on the “History of Whaling in Antarctica” in preparation at tomorrow´s landing at Deception Island.  The weather tonight didn't look like it was going to break enough for there to be any kind of beautiful sunset so I decided i would do my best to get some good sleep tonight for the first time in a week. 

Watching the ship pull into Deception Island tomorrow is supposed to be something to not miss, so I plan on being up early to set up the GoPro and film the whole thing is possible.

Weather Conditions
Wind (direction & force): South East | Light Breeze (4-6 Knots)
Weather & Sea: Clouded | Smooth

LAT. 63˚ 34.9’ S, LONG. 55˚ 46.3’ W

Antarctica - Day 12 - Part 1

MONDAY, DECEMBER 9TH

Breakfast was served at 07:30 again this morning, and once again I decided to skip it because I still can't adjust to eating when my body think's it's 2:30am. LOL

Our first landing today was at 9:00am at a location called Brown Bluff.  When you see the photo, the name will make perfect sense. :)  Brown  Bluff  is  an  ice-capped,  flat  topped,  745m  high  mountain with a prominent cliff of reddish-brown volcanic rocks. It is part of the northernmost continental extension of the Antarctic Peninsula, and home to thousands of Adelie Penguins, a few hundred Gentoo Penguins  and  a  mix  of  Kelp  Gulls,  Skuas,  Snow  Petrels,  and Pintado Petrels. It is located by the Antarctic Sound to the east of Hope  Bay.

Today was the first day where the weather finally looked and felt like what I had always Antarctica to be like.  The sky was grey, the wind was blowing pretty hard, and it was cold out there.  In fact, before we headed to the land, we were told that our stay may have to be short because the ice was already beginning to move back in.  The captain said he would stay as long as he could, but if the conditions got much worse, he would blow the ships horn twice and we all needed to get back to the ship ASAP.  

As we headed to land, things didn't look too bad out in the bay even though you could see a few huge icebergs way off in the distance.  We were met on the shoreline by lots of Adelie Penguins and right away you could see how different their behavior was compared to the Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins we had been seeing up until now.  For one thing, these Penguins were so much faster on land than the others, and they behaved differently as well which became so very entertaining to watch. The first thing I noticed is that ran up and down the beach in single file, and you couldn't help but kind of laugh as the would go running past you or up close to you where they would stop and check you out.

The other thing that was very different was the way these guys would all gather together at the shoreline. While the Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins would go into the water a few at a time or even by themselves, the Adelie seemed to only work under the assumption that there was safety in numbers.  A few of them might actually go up to the water's edge and appear ready to go in, but they weren't going anywhere any time soon.... as they insisted on waiting for much larger numbers to come join them before even attempting to jump in.  It was so funny...  to see the way they would bunch up and then seem to wait for one brave, or extra hungry member of the group to be the first to jump in, after which the rest would suddenly dive in behind him until yet another penguin in the group would freeze up, causing the penguins behind him to stop as well, and even run away from the water for a second until they realized they should have gone because this one dummy only got cold feet and now they were all stuck again, waiting for the whole process to start over.  LOL

You can't really see all of that in action  in the photos, but this gives you a little idea what it looked like.  LOL

As we were all sitting there enjoying watching these silly penguins run up and down the beach, and watch them struggle to decide if they wanted to risk diving in to the water to eat, it started to snow and the wind began to pick up.  We suddenly got the call that we had to get back to the ship right now, and everyone was good and rushed back to the Zodiacs.  I think it might have been the fastest they have ever gotten everybody back on board and as soon as I got up on the ship, I could see why the captain made the call that we had to get moving, and now!

Where the bay had been fairly free of ice when we first left the ship, this is what it looked like as we got back on board.

The ice had seriously moved in on us, and the last thing we wanted was to get stuck here in all that ice for who knows how long if it froze up all around the ship. 

So, the visit to Brown Bluff was cut short, but we finally experienced just how fast the weather and conditions here can change, and we got to feel what the weather in Antarctica probably feels like more often than not.  Up until now we've had spring like temperatures... this was more like it!  :)

LAT. 63° 32’ 00” S, LONG. 56° 52’ 00” W

Weather Conditions
Wind (direction & force): South | Fresh Breeze (17-21 Knots)
Weather & Sea: Clouded | Smooth
Temperature: -2ºC | 28.4 ºF

Antarctica - Day 8 - Part 2

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5TH

After getting back on the ship, it was time for breakfast.  I normally skip breakfast but now that I've been up and trudging through snow for a couple of hours, I worked up an appetite so had to check out the offering.  Breakfast on the ship is buffet style, and they had put out eggs, bacon, toast, fruits, cereal, yogurt, and a few other things I probably missed.

After breakfast, we suited up again. This time it was going to be for a Zodiac cruise in the waters around Spert Island, an island lying off the west extremity of Trinity Island, in the Palmer Archipielago.  They had to split everyone into two groups in order to get us all on the available Zodiacs for a 90 minute cruise around the bay.  I was in the early group today.

The water was really smooth and the Zodiac ride was awesome. Just feeling the wind on your face, smelling the fresh air, hearing the water splash around us.. it really felt like you were IN nature now more than just observing it.  The views all around us were amazing but with people on each side of the boat, it was kind of hard to get great shots without someone getting in the way.  It took a little time but we finally figured out a method that seemed to work well.  people on one side would kneel down on the floor while the other side took photos over your head and then we would switch when the views were on the other side of us.

I was really surprised at just how beautiful the weather was and how warm it was on the Zodiac.  I was so worried about being cold on this trip and so far, I've been anything but. Even on the water like that. :)   Here are a few shots to give an idea of how things looked:

The first two shots have the Zodiac in them to try to give an idea of scale to the area we were in, and to the size of one of the icebergs that was just sitting behind the ship when we offloaded.

Here are two more shots looking on each side of us to show you how big this bay is and just how smooth the water is right now. 

And this shot hopefully gives you at least a little idea of how massive those mountains really are. I felt really small sitting down on the water looking up at them.... heck, just that iceberg in front of the mountain was massive!

Here is another shot of that iceberg with a Zodiac closer to it, so you can really see the size of it.

After going around a few icebergs and getting up close to them, we wandered further out and over to this massive rock and channel between them.  There was a big chunk of ice stuck in there that totally blocked our ability to pass the rest of the way through there, but it was fun to get up close to it and just see how wedged in there it was.

In the photo it looks like that thing might be connected to the rocks, but it was actually fully free floating in there.  When we got up and super close to it, you could watch it just bobbing up and down on the water and it didn't seem possible as that chunk of ice had to be the size of a 2 or 3 story home.  Yet it just bobbed around effortlessly between those huge slabs of stone.

This was just a quick shot, looking back at the ship to see just how far we've traveled so far, and we were still moving further away when I shot this.

There was a very cool rock arch hidden way from our view until we got close to it, and then two small caves as well.  We tried to talk the driver into taking us through there, but he wouldn't risk it because he couldn't be sure how safe that would be.

Here is another decent sized iceberg that has been worn smooth by the seas over however many years it's been out there floating around.

There was a little bit of a ice jam back here... at least until the winds and tide change again and all that huge ice floats back out into the bay.

And then totally unexpectedly, we saw our third type of Penguin out there..  this Adelie Penguin was far from home and much further north than they usually travel. No one seemed sure what might have brought him so far north, but for now it was taking a break from swimming and just hanging out up on a rock shelf.  

The 90 minutes out there went by so very fast. I couldn't believe it was already time to get back to the ship, but there was another group waiting for their turn so back we went.  Here's what it looks like looking up at the ship from down on the water.

The rest of the day was spend on the ship and was pretty relaxing.  We were served lunch at noon, and then after a short break there were a few lectures again. The first was on the Exposure triangle at 13:30 and then at 15:00 there was the first Critique session where everyone was asked to pick two shots to share with the group and then the Pros would tell you what worked or didn't work with the shot and ways to make them better.  That session was great and it was interesting to see what other's were shooting.

Then it was dinner at 19:00 and Critique session #2 which mostly covered the photos that the first session didn't get to.  After that, a lot of people headed to their rooms to sleep after getting up so early, but the light outside was looking good and I wanted to stay up and see what came of it, along with a handful of others.  Looks like this might be the regular night owl group as it's the same people again tonight as it was last night.

The wait paid off as the light was pretty amazing tonight.  Now to find out if I got any great shots out of it.  It's too late to look now... it's almost 1:30am and I need some sleep!