January 3 - Esperanza and Hope Bay

We have not had internet since leaving the Antarctic peninsula. The course of the ship and the satellite configurations, left us cut off from the world for about 48 hours.

We left Yankee Harbour in the late afternoon for our sail across the Bransfield strait. During recap and briefing I reminded everyone we were sailing over new oceanic crust - just 4 million years old, with several very large submarine volcanoes, only one of which, Deception Island is emergent.  I think everyone was impressed to think there were volcanoes underneath of them! Anyway, we sailed through Antarctic Sound in the early morning hours and stopped off the Argentina station of Esperanza and Hope Bay. The wind was pretty fierce, but we got protection from a large tabular iceberg and started operations at 6 AM to try to avoid the wind. The highlight here is Adélie penguins as well as the dramatic cliffs and glacier at the head of Hope Bay. I was pared up with Iggy and we made several trips to the bay – each one calmer and warmer than the one before! It was remarkable how sunny and calm it became.  It was still very cold (I had on two layers of down).  

Over 150, 000 Adelie penguins live in the rookery here at Esperanza.

The Adélie penguins are really very hilarious, the walk in long lines, toboggan both up and down hill and stand on the shore line in large groups waiting for someone to make the first move to jump in! We had great views of the adults as well as quite a few chicks. There was even a leopard seal!  We saw a carcass being fed on by giant petrels, which had probably met its end at the mouth of the seal. Given the dead penguin we had seen they have every right to be scared.

Those strange objects in the water are porpoising Adelie penguins!

Note the very regular lines of penguins marching to the sea!

Two penguins contemplating the jump into the sea.

More porpoising penguins!

In addition to the tabular icebergs there was lots of interesting sea ice formations around.

It was very clear so we were able to see the subglacial volcano of Brown Bluff about 20 km away as well as James Ross Island, a very large island in the Weddell sea.  It is about 70 km away so just the top appeared as a rounded hill in the far distance. It is a volcanic island that is at least as old as 6.5 million years, but has had fairly recent eruptions.  In addition to the view of James Ross Island we were treated to the sight of many tabular icebergs. They are from the collapse of ice shelves in the Weddell Sea and carried northward by the Weddell Sea gyre into the Antarctic circum polar current.

We lost internet access today as we headed out of Antarctic Sound, we did not get it back until we were fairly close to South Georgia. 

Zodiacs waiting to "go up on the hook" with James Ross Island volcanic complex in the distance - looks a bit like a cloud.

Brown Bluff is a sub to englacial volcanic complex to the east of Esperanza.

January 2 - Yankee Harbour

Is it possible to be two days into 2015?

We cruised slowly through the night and were off our landing site of Yankee Harbour by 6 AM. It is a lovely bay ringed by glaciers with a dramatic cliff exposing the eroded roots of a large shield volcano above a prominent moraine where the penguins nest.  I gave a presentation on glaciers on glaciers, ice bergs and sea ice this morning, so only spent the afternoon out in the site.  There were chicks only a few days to hours old! There were really very cute.

Note two sets of baby chicks - likely only a day or two old.

More chicks!

The Gentoos were nesting on a long moraine that had a few seals hauled out on it.

Juvenile crab-eater seal.

Molting juvenile elephant seals.

Behind the penguins was a dramatic cliff of lava flows cut with dykes.

Landing area on the large moraine shows cliff, but by dykes.

January 1, 2015 - Water Boat Point

This morning we arrived very close to where we had started yesterday at 5 AM! The Chilean base at Water Boat point!  It was a lovely day of communing with penguins.  Then the afternoon/evening was spent in a stunning cruise up the Gerlach in glorious sunshine!

Gentoo Penguins - eggs, but no chicks yet.

Our guests from the cupola window.

Quest from the cupola.

Me and the gentoos!

December 31 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Maria and I send all of you our very best for 2015 - Health, happiness and well being!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Even the ship's mascot penguin got into the act!

Some of the great food!

Crab cake with caviar.

Grand Piano dessert.

December 31 - New Year's Eve - Base Brown

This morning we were treated to a VERY early landing! Zodiac drivers were up at 3:15 AM and the rest of us at 4:00 AM!  The timing was important because of overlapping usage of the site and the booking of another ship for the afternoon. We had to have our 450 passengers onshore and the visit completed, and the ship gone by 1 PM. Everything went very smoothly, with the first passengers off the ship for an hour zodiac tour at 5 AM. These early birds had the advantage of seeing some humpback whales in close proximity!

The site is very pretty with lots of great views of glaciers all around as well as a nice hill to climb and a sliding slope! No sprained ankles this time around!

This is the Argentinian base "Brown". The top of the hill is 100 m above the base. 

I was on the high point with a great view of the surrounding glaciers. There was one that kept having small failures through the morning. It then had a bit larger avalanche, I raised my camera for a closer look when it failed! Spectacular.

In the afternoon we headed south to the Lemaire Channel. It still had a lot of ice, but we made it through to the other end - 65 degrees 7 minutes would be our farthest point south. The channel is 200 m wide with cliffs close to 900 m on either side, glaciers and we saw several minke whales close to the ship.

View along the channel.

Stranded icebergs in a side channel.

Cape Renard towers over 800 m tall.

We sailed out of the channel through the Neumayer in the evening as everyone began the New Year's Eve festivity.  See the next blog for what Maria and I did!

December 30 - King George Island, Bransfield and Gerlache Strait

We arrived off Frei base about 4:30 AM and Iggy, Robin and Chris took care of the medivac, with the plan arriving as scheduled at 6:30 AM. We were soon on our way back south.  It was extremely lucky that the weather was so good, there were no visibility problems for the plane and everything went very smoothly.  

Chilean base Frei on King George Island.

Scheduled lectures went ahead and the recap from last night was given at 11. Passengers were told the plan for today was to head straight down the Bransfield Strait, through the Gerlache with the expectation of being off Paradise Bay early tomorrow morning for zodiac operations starting at 5 AM!  (for us that means a wake-up time of 4:30, but the zodiac drivers will be up around 3 AM).

Rory Martin (one of the zodiac drivers) in the zodiac storage area.

In the meantime... we headed south to spectacular views, including views of the 2000 m peaks of the peninsula.  We passed a few hump back whales, then more, then more....   then we went dead slow near a group of about 6 - 8 humpbacks that were bubble netting.   We watched them for about 30 minutes, then headed on-ward.  

 

Two of the numerous hump backs around the ship.

 Those of us on deck headed back to our rooms only to be called back to the deck half and hour later as a large iceberg with penguins was spotted and the captain brought us very close.  We watched the penguins shoot out of the water, as they clawed their way to the upper surface of the iceberg.

Chin Strap Penguins on an iceberg that had rolled - not mountains of the peninsula in the sunshine.

We then headed back to our cabins.  Maria now has enough paintings completed and formatted for sale that they were put on display in the shop and she will have a little "opening" tomorrow afternoon. We headed up to take a picture or two. 

Maria with her paintings.

We then headed out on deck and we were surrounded by whales.  I counted at least 14 at the surface around the rear of the ship.  It was very surreal. The ship is going fairly slowly, there is virtually no wind, the peaks rise precipitously out of the sea blanketed in massive amounts of ice - and there are all these whales, breaching, blowing, and swimming through the landscape. Amazing!!

Although not very visible in the photo, the foreground has more than a dozen whales surfacing.

December 29 - Half Moon Island

Early this morning we entered the South Shetland Islands via Nelson strait and headed for Half Moon Island on the east side of Livingston Island. We got up to an amazing site of the island in sunshine and the peaks of Livingston Island visible behind.  The chinstraps now had very small chicks, hatched in the last few days. There was one lone macaroni penguin among them.  There were also a lot of very sleep Weddell seals along the beach.  Unfortunately there was a medical emergency among the last group of passengers to shore. The serious was not known immediately, but soon we were told that we would be setting sail for King George Island and a medivac sometime later in the day. It was a beautiful evening, warm and very calm, so everyone took in stride the change of plans as we all whale watched on the decks.

Livingston Island in the background - the temperature got up to 10 C during the day!

View of the gabbroic rocks that make up much of Half Moon Island.

Chin strap rookery sliced by basalt dykes.

Marie painting near the rookery.

Chin strap heading home.

Quest anchored in Half Moon bay.

There were hump back whales and lots of penguins around the ship as we headed to King George.  Due to the change of plans we were all asked to be out on deck and in the observation lounge to talk to passengers, explain the situation and watch for wildlife. The Captain came on later in the evening explaining that the medivac had been arranged to take place from the Chilean base called Frei which has an airstrip. The plane comes from Punta Arenas and takes just over two hours. The plane was due to leave at 4 AM, arriving around 6:30 AM.

Ice berg on our way to King George Island.

Since we were all dressed to be out on deck, Maria and I chose to eat in the grill - but it was COLD!!