Antarctica-the 7th Continent!

Hi, Folks,

The next day – another at sea – was interesting: lots of motion, but Bonine took care of any problem for me; wrist bands for John. We did have a penguin lecture at 9:30 a.m., but – much more interesting – I had a martini tasting at 11:30 a.m.  About 25 of us hardy individuals gathered both at the bar and at tables alongside while we tasted four martinis.  I forgot to take my phone, so no pix…..but I did take a picture of the placemat for our shot glasses.  The espresso martini is really good and decadent…..and a couple days later I tried the Silver Spirit but made with vodka (rather than gin)…much better!

There are no pictures from the next day at sea; we attended surprisingly interesting lectures from experienced naturalists, ate, ate again and ate again. Cruises are not for the faint of eating heart !

The following day we reached Elephant Island, an ice-covered mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the South Shetland Islands.

This was our first stop in Antarctica…..but it is an island and not on the continent……so it counts, but not as stepping on one’s seventh continent! Elephant Island is best known as the place where Ernest Shackleton left his men while he and five others took off in a rowboat to try to reach help.  You will remember from the prior blog that their ship had been destroyed by the ice; the entire crew had tried to row for help…..but they had made backwards progress because of rough seas.  So he left the remaining crew with lots of provisions to try to reach South Georgia to enlist help.  Just think: no means of communication, no modern day techniques for navigation and horrible, horrible seas and weather.  The fact that not one man was lost during this hideous time is so unbelievable; both he and his first officer Wild deserve so much credit!!!

I know, funny hair in the next picture:

 

Our first sightings on Elephant Island were the Chinstrap Penguins.  Here is the rookery:

Look at the chinstrap just beneath the beak:

And some seal pups:

John got off the zodiac at Elephant Island, but I chose not to get off and took two zodiac cruises back to back.  The reward was that I got to see a seal take down a penguin in the water.  I don’t have a great picture, but I have two that show the pink legs of the penguin sticking out of the water as he is being devoured!

It was pretty amazing and didn’t take long at all!

Finally, the next day, we stepped out of our zodiac at Brown Bluff on the continent of Antarctica, an “official continent landing” according to our naturalist, and our cameras seemed to never stop clicking or videoing!!!  As soon as we disembarked, one of the naturalists set up a box for me to sit on near the edge of the ice so I didn’t have to walk; however, almost immediately, I saw a penguin colony so I started walking, albeit carefully and slowly.  All of a sudden a huge group of Adelie Penguins started coming to me…. so I stopped. They are sooooo cute; I love their blue eyes and simple coloring.  And I love that they seem to move in huge groups…. “let’s go this way; no let’s turn around and go the other way” over and over again.  I couldn’t get enough!   Eventually, I returned to the box – it was like a chair – so much easier to get up and down.  And all morning long the penguins walked by me – one way, then the other.  Hysterical!

Look at those blue eyes!!!

When penguins swim it is called “porpoising.” They come up and down in the water in small arches and it is very cute to watch. I have had very limited success with videos in the blog, but I’ll give it a try.

 

In the afternoon on Wednesday we continued toward Hope Bay.  Along the way we saw some wonderful icebergs and penguins floating by.  Then we took a zodiac cruise to look around Hope Bay.

In this last image from Hope Bay you can see an Argentine settlement; they even have a swimming pool.

Thursday took us to Neko Harbour — more ice formations and lots of pengchicks!!!

And us:

We cruised onward south in Antarctica.  At one point a Weddell seal floated by our ship sleeping on an iceberg!

And then, later in the afternoon there was one more stop — the main attraction of which was a museum and gift shop.  John went and I stayed on board, but there were some interesting sights, including whale bones.  He also arranged for our passports to be stamped there.

Antarctic Shag and chicks:

Brown Skua attacking a snowy petrel:

We were warned that evening that the weather for the Drake Passage was NOT looking good for our crossing; in fact, there were two fronts almost back to back.  And that we might have to time our exit from Antarctica to sneak between these two weather systems.  This was, in fact, what we had to do.

The next morning we were having the final stop, on Fort Point and Hardy Cove.  John and I were assigned to the first zodiac and it was a very dicey landing — big waves and a beach of huge rocks.  In fact, we were the only zodiac off-loaded there; from then on they dropped passengers around the island at Hardy Cove — that is where we were welcome to do the Arctic Plunge.  There were two couples and one young crew member who did participate — crazy!  We just enjoyed our last moments on land of this amazing trip.  

I did happen to look out our balcony when they were lowering the zodiacs — it was not as I had imagined.

It looks beautiful…..but the seas were high and rocky.  Getting back into the zodiac was a little tricky.  In fact, he had to back the zodiac to the shore and a big wave covered it just as I was getting in.  I was pretty wet even through my “waterproof” pants!  

It is the next day now — Saturday.  We are having 50 mph wind (that is gale force) and the  really rocking seas cresting at 16 to 20 feet.  The scopolamine patch is working for us…..but getting around is very dicey.  We are likely going to get back to Ushuaia a day (or at least part of a day) early.  

John and I have brought our good luck weather to this trip.  It is highly unusual to being able to make every single landing — we made them all!  We did have to skip a last day in Antarctica, but I am glad not to have any rougher seas than this.  At lunch today, one of the naturalists told me this crossing was rougher than most — oh, joy!  Lucky us!!  But I will take this as a trade for all of our good fortune earlier.

Notice that you don’t see the horizon…..we were rocking to this side when John took the picture:

Taken through the wet dining room windows:

We are going on to Buenos Aires for 4 days and will be home next Sunday. It has been a great trip so far. We have met a large number of very interesting people, all of whom, not surprisingly, are quite well traveled.  Until then,

See you,

Beth