Sat
17 Jan
2015

15th-17th Janu­ary 2015 – From here on we real­ly start our ant­ar­c­tic Odys­seey, the see­mingly end­less distances around a good part of the con­ti­nent. Many hundred nau­ti­cal miles over open sea. The coast remains far away and out of sight, and so does the pack ice. This is how it should be. If we start making end­less cur­ves and bends alre­a­dy now, then we will never get any­whe­re. Time our most pre­cious resour­ce now.

And it is pas­sing quick­ly. Some­ti­mes with a bree­ze, some­ti­mes wit­hout, but it is gene­ral­ly with quite calm seas the­se first days across the Bel­lings­hau­sen Sea are going by. When the wind is blo­wing, many like to be out on the open deck, becau­se then many of the beau­tiful Cape Pet­rels are gli­ding around the ship, in see­mingly end­less num­bers. It is pro­ba­b­ly a limi­t­ed num­ber of indi­vi­du­als that are always coming back in cir­cles, visi­ting the ship every cou­ple of minu­tes, but it must still be some hundreds of them. Some­ti­mes, they will sit on the water for a moment, dip their head into the waves and then take off again with a few run­ning steps on the water, the maneou­vre that has given the pet­rels their com­mon name, after St. Peter from the bible, who also tried to walk over water, slight­ly less suc­cessful than his boss. In con­trast to St. Peter, the pet­rels don’t sink into the water, but are soon fly­ing up in the ski­es again, with some more krill in the s tomach. I have never seen krill in the sto­mach from a moving ship. If I was depen­ding on fin­ding krill, I would long have star­ved to death. But what looks like a desert of water to us, is a rich table for the­se sea­birds.

The super-remo­te island of Peter I remains hid­den behind clouds and waves. We spend a few hours near this now almost invi­si­ble island. Once, we put a zodiac on the water to find out what we actual­ly alre­a­dy know: the sea is too rough for us to board the zodiacs. Every few seconds the plat­form of the gang­way is eit­her han­gin high abo­ve the water or dis­ap­pears insi­de a wave. From the boat you can see what it is real­ly like, it looks less dra­ma­tic from deck. This does sim­ply not work, not today, not in the­se con­di­ti­ons. So we wave good­bye to this lone­so­me, deso­la­te island and con­ti­nue our jour­ney west­wards. We can’t do any­thing against wind and ice, human desi­re is not­hing against the forces of natu­re. This can occa­sio­nal­ly be dis­ap­poin­ting and dif­fi­cult to accept.

Wed
14 Jan
2015

The well-known sounds and islands of the cen­tral Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la, whe­re we almost always know a shel­te­red place some­whe­re behind a cor­ner, is now behind us, and we are hea­ding into the more unknown. Well, not real­ly unknown, but much less of a well-trod­den path than we have been on so far. More dif­fi­cult ter­rain at the same time: more open, less shel­te­red, more ice, no small bays giving pro­tec­tion, lon­ger distances.

It beca­me clear quite ear­ly on that the Fish Islands didn’t want us. At least ear­ly enough so we did not have to set the alarm clocks for 4 a.m. A second attempt during the later mor­ning came to an end once we had rea­ched a mas­si­ve array of huge ice­bergs, guar­ding the Fish Iclands like giant ice demons. They cle­ar­ly did not have any inten­ti­on of let­ting us through, so we snea­k­ed out again to try our luck else­whe­re. The Fish Islands are just a num­ber of small sker­ries, just big enough to sup­port a popu­la­ti­on of Adé­lie pen­gu­ins and Blue-eyed shags. We would find ano­ther inte­res­t­ing spot for us else­whe­re.

Detail­le Island was to be the next desti­na­ti­on, but first of all we had to cross the magi­cal line that sepa­ra­tes high lati­tu­des from even hig­her lati­tu­des: the south polar cir­cle. You can cross its nor­t­hern equi­va­lent con­ve­ni­ent­ly by train, bicy­cle, car or bus, or in a pla­ne, wit­hout get­ting to know about it. Here in the south, the club of tho­se who have crossed the line is far more exclu­si­ve. That was cle­ar­ly some­thing that had to be cele­bra­ted duly, and our fearless lea­der Don had very distinc­ti­ve ide­as of how this was to be done. May­be an old ritu­al from New Zea­land? Who knows. Any­way, some of us loo­ked like Mao­ri chiefs after having com­ple­ted the pro­ce­du­res duly. Well, almost.

Again, natu­re had set her migh­ty ice guar­di­ans bet­ween us and the pro­mi­sed land. Not as gigan­tic as ear­lier today, but more than enough ice­bergs, ber­gy bits and sea ice floes to keep us from rea­ching Detail­le Island and its his­to­ri­cal hut. So we went into the Zodiacs and out into the ice and enjoy­ed it great­ly. Blue colours of all shades, bizar­re shapes, Cra­bea­ter seals res­t­ing on ice. A fine fare­well to the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la. Then, we went out into the Bel­lings­hau­sen Sea, hea­ding for Peter I Island.

Tue
13 Jan
2015

The Lemai­re Chan­nel ist among­st the most famous bits of Ant­ar­c­ti­ca. Thou­sands of tou­rists crui­se every sou­thern sum­mer through this unre­al water­way, a jaw­drop­ping expe­ri­ence. The Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la to the left and Booth Island to the right. Moun­ta­ins almost a thousand met­res high and some quite impres­siv gla­ciers to eit­her side. The Bel­gi­an explo­rer Adri­en de Ger­la­che, tog­e­ther with a young Roald Amund­sen, was among­st the first who descri­bed the Lemai­re Chan­nel as a place that could make a visi­tor shi­ver in awe. That was in ear­ly 1898.

The actu­al pas­sa­ge is a few hundred met­res nar­row and from a distance one may won­der if the­re is actual­ly a pas­sa­ge at all, and inde­ed, it can be blo­cked by drif­ting ice. The­re was a lot of ice, but far from being too much to keep us from pas­sing through. Cra­bea­ter and Leo­pard seals were wat­ching as Ort­eli­us was win­ding her way through bet­ween the ber­gy bits and ice­bergs.

Most ships pass twice through the Lemai­re Chan­nel, once on the way south and then back again on the return jour­ney. We don’t turn around, we rather keep going fur­ther south. Peter­mann Island, a com­mon fur­thest south, is for us just a step­ping stone on the way to the south polar cir­cle. We were a bit worried that the small rocky landing bay might be blo­cked by brash ice, but were deligh­ted to find the coast clear. I was to have the plea­sant task of guar­ding the sou­thern end of the island for a while, which was visi­ted by nobo­dy. Under­stan­d­a­b­ly so, as the main attrac­tion, a colo­ny of Ade­lie pen­gu­ins, a new spe­ci­es for us on this trip, is on the nor­t­hern end, a few hundred met­res away. So I spent an enjoya­ble while sit­ting on a rock, a litt­le island in a sea of deep snow, with bree­ding Gen­too pen­gu­ins as my nea­rest neigh­bours, which are busy ste­al­ing stones from each others nests and fee­ding their off­spring. They are bree­ding around a woo­den cross that com­me­mo­ra­tes 3 Bri­tish sci­en­tists who got lost in sea ice in the vici­ni­ty of Peter­mann Island a while ago. I don’t think any­bo­dy knows if they got lost on an ice floe that drifted away or if they bro­ke through thin ice. Their bodies were never found. Even the pen­gu­ins seem to bend their heads in front of the cross.

Gen­too pen­gu­ins are near their sou­thern dis­tri­bu­ti­on limit here on Peter­mann Island. This part of the coast of the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la, bet­ween 64 and 65 degrees south, is some­ti­mes cal­led the bana­na coast of Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, as it is sup­po­sedly mild. Not­hing is real­ly mild here, it is a wild land­scape of bar­ren, most­ly steep rocks and a lot of snow and ice, but on a fair­wea­ther day like today, it feels inde­ed warm.

Mild or not, we lea­ve this coast behind us and set cour­se for col­der parts of Ant­ar­c­ti­ca.

Tue
13 Jan
2015

Para­di­se Bay (actual­ly Para­di­se Har­bour) is a clas­sic in the Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la, ever­bo­dies favou­ri­te. The grand sce­n­ery of coas­tal Ant­ar­c­ti­ca is cul­mi­na­ting here with ver­ti­cal rock­walls almost 1000 m high, sepa­ra­ted by migh­ty and hea­vi­ly crev­as­sed gla­ciers pushing down to the icy sea, pro­du­cing migh­ty ice­bergs with an impres­si­ve rum­ble. Com­ple­te this with the occa­sio­nal Wed­dell seal rela­xing on pie­ce of ice and a short glim­pse of a Min­ke wha­le, and you have got all you need for a 3 hour Zodiac crui­se.

Now we are on our way towards the Lemai­re Chan­nel and Peter­mann Island. The Lemai­re was recent­ly blo­cked by ice, so we are curious if we can get through today.

Mon
12 Jan
2015

It is part of a polar traveller’s life to return to the same place again and again. Of cour­se the­re are tho­se places whe­re you are get­ting blown by the wind only once in a life­time. Others are rou­ti­ne. Most are some­thing inbet­ween. And occa­sio­nal­ly, as I have to admit, the­re are tho­se places I could well do wit­hout, at least some­ti­mes.

Decep­ti­on Island is among­st the let­ter. The island has got its name for good – or rather: bad – reason. Who cares that nobo­dy real­ly knows any­mo­re what that reason was. Any­way, too often you feel decei­ved for the pre­cious time after a visit the­re. But ever­y­bo­dy knows this famous island and almost ever­y­bo­dy wants to go the­re.

Not so today. Alre­a­dy the approach was an ant­ar­c­tic delight, a light bree­ze under a bright sun, the rim of the cal­de­ra of Decep­ti­on Island ahead of us in full width. The ent­rance, known as Neptune’s Bel­lows, is such a thing in its­elf. It is quite nar­row, and to make bad things worse, mother natu­re pla­ced a rock in the midd­le of it, pro­ba­b­ly in a moment of bad tem­per. This rock has cost some ships more than just a scratch of paint.

The Nor­we­gi­an wha­lers used to be tough peo­p­le. Put a wha­ling sta­ti­on the­re, on a plain of black vol­ca­nic sand. Tho­se who think that it is gene­ral­ly calm insi­de this see­mingly well-shel­te­red natu­ral har­bour will soon be dis­ap­poin­ted (decept­ed, isn’t it?), and I don’t want to know what it was like to spend the day up to the waist in wha­le­b­lood and –oil, in almost con­stant wind, cold and a natu­ral sand blower.

Litt­le is left of all this, or of a sta­ti­on that was built here later by the Bri­tish. Vol­ca­nic erup­ti­ons that went tog­e­ther with ash­falls and melt­wa­ter tor­rents tur­ned it all into splin­ters.

On a nor­mal day, which means in win­dy, cold, grey wea­ther, most will be done rather quick­ly here and hap­pi­ly be back on board soo­ner rather than later. But life is good here on a rare sun­ny day. Of cour­se, I am sup­po­sed to enjoy it in any kind of wea­ther and always to cap­tu­re some good pics, but … not­hing, it is sim­ply less fun in bad wea­ther. Peri­od. But today, the­re are so many lar­ger objects and small details that catch the eye and the photographer’s atten­ti­on. The com­bi­na­ti­on of decaying buil­dings, rus­ting ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry indus­tri­al remains and ant­ar­c­tic natu­re in a vol­ca­nic set­ting is inde­ed uni­que. Start­ing with colourful vol­ca­nic rocks lying on black ashes to lonely patches of mos­ses and the old air­plane han­gar (it took ages and almost bury­ing the came­ra in the ashes to get that pho­to right) to the few remaing gra­ves (dito).

Con­side­ring that the ear­lier descri­bed visit to Half­moon Island was actual­ly also today, you will agree that it was a gre­at day.

Mon
12 Jan
2015

Hoo­r­ay – Land! We have been at sea for just two days, very calm days, not­hing com­pared to the long legs that are to come later in the trip. But it is always gre­at to arri­ve some­whe­re. „Some­whe­re“ is th South Shet­land Islands in this case, a group of islands off the nor­thwes­tern Ant­ar­c­tic Pen­in­su­la, neigh­bou­ring the Dra­ke Pas­sa­ge. As you might ima­gi­ne, the wea­ther is usual­ly sh … here, and opti­mism was limi­t­ed last night as I went to bed and the islands were most­ly hid­den behind curta­ins of snow.

And inde­ed, the wind was a bit adver­se when we approa­ched Half­moon Island in the midd­le of the night, so Cap­tain deci­ded to drop anchor not in the usu­al by of the island that bears its name for a reason, but behind it – the dark side of the moon, as one might say. Tur­ned out it wasn’t the grea­test posi­ti­on for our Zodiac ope­ra­ti­ons when we star­ted: a lon­gish ride into the waves, and my col­le­ague Dima and I spent quite some time in (mode­ra­te) surf, hand­ling Zodiacs while we were get­ting ever­y­bo­dy ashore. At 5 a.m., as shouldn’t go unno­ti­ced. Well, sleep is gene­ral­ly over­ra­ted, and so is break­fast. But who cares about slee­ping and eating when you can spend the ear­ly mor­ning wal­king around on an ant­ar­c­tic island in the vici­ni­ty of Chin­strap pen­gu­ins? They are the lou­dest, dir­tie­st, live­liest and bad­dest-tem­pe­red among­st the ant­ar­c­tic pen­gu­ins. Ama­zing crea­tures, like all the wild­life down here. Very enter­tai­ning!

And a lonely Mac­ca­ro­ni pen­gu­in in the midd­le of one of the colo­nies. Wha­te­ver he was doing the­re, he must have been fee­ling like a hor­se in the midd­le of a herd of cows, but he did appear­ent­ly not mind, as he was stan­ding the­re hap­pi­ly with his big, red beak and his love­ly yel­low-gol­den hair­cut. Good for us, as we are unli­kely to see this spe­ci­es again on our trip, and we would cer­tain­ly have missed some­thing we we hadn’t seen this pecu­li­ar, rather sub-ant­ar­c­tic pen­gu­in. All this with the grand sce­n­ery of the islands of Living­ston and Green­wich in the back­ground. Hard to lea­ve … but then the­re were rumours about break­fast on the ship, some­thing that came as the icing on the cake of a gre­at ear­ly mor­ning. Don’t belie­ve anyo­ne who pre­tends break­fast isn’t important.

On the rare occa­si­ons when Living­ston Island is strip­ping off its usu­al cloud cover, it is just gre­at. A few small clouds for deco­ra­ti­on pur­po­ses near some of the hig­her peaks, most­ly blue ski­es over Brans­field Strait, warm­ing sun­rays on the skin and the blow of Hump­back wha­les quite regu­lar­ly not too far from the ship. A mother with calf, swim­ming their way in a rela­xed man­ner, hard­ly taking noti­ce from us. Unfor­gettable hours!

Sun
11 Jan
2015

10th-11th Janu­ary 2015 – God has put the Dra­ke Pas­sa­ge bet­ween Ant­ar­c­ti­ca and the rest of the world, and this sea­way has got its bad repu­ta­ti­on for good reason. But it is not at all living up to its repu­ta­ti­on now, you hard­ly feel that you are on a ship, to our gre­at satis­fac­tion. You could play bil­lard, some­thing which is not usual­ly asso­cia­ted with ships at sea. No reason to com­plain, in other words. Tho­se who wan­ted to could even get sun­b­urnt on deck yes­ter­day, while the­re were rela­tively few birds around the ship. They are more num­e­rous today: Wan­de­ring alba­tros­ses of dif­fe­rent age stages, as the plu­mage makes clear: the brow­nish ones are juve­ni­les, while the most­ly white ones are ful­ly adult. In addi­ti­on to that, the­re is a nice cross sec­tion of typi­cal spe­ci­es for the area around the ship, inclu­ding the small Wilson’s storm pet­rel with its very lively flight, the beau­tiful­ly pat­ter­ned Cape pet­rel, the occa­sio­nal White-chin­ned pet­rel and the maje­s­tic Wan­de­ring alba­tross at most times. Many of us are out on deck, enjoy­ing the Sou­thern Oce­an and its inha­bi­tants, try­ing to cap­tu­re them on memo­ry card. Call yours­elf hap­py if you have got a fast came­ra J

It is noti­ce­ab­ly col­der now, during the second day of our crossing, the cold is making its­elf felt through thin clo­thes, and the visi­bi­li­ty is occa­sio­nal­ly decreased by snow show­ers. Ant­ar­c­ti­ca is cle­ar­ly get­ting clo­ser. Mean­while, we can see the first wha­les, a group of 7-8 Fin wha­les, swim­ming abo­ve a 3,000 m water column.

You wouldn’t expect to be forced to do some vacu­um clea­ning on an ant­ar­c­tic expe­di­ti­on. But you are. Taking unwan­ted orga­nic mat­ter to Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, such as plant seeds which might intro­du­ce new spe­ci­es to this remo­te envi­ron­ment or bac­te­ria or viru­s­es that could bring dise­a­ses to the wild­life the­re, has to be pre­ven­ted by all means. What means some minu­tes of clea­ning work weig­hed against the risk of brin­ging „ali­ens to Ant­ar­c­ti­ca“.

Unneces­sa­ry to men­ti­on that the­se sea days are bro­ken up by regu­lar lec­tures, intro­du­cing the „birds of the wind“ or the wha­les of the Sou­thern Oce­an and of cour­se man­da­to­ry events inclu­ding envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly beha­viour in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca.

Snow show­ers are get­ting more fre­quent in the after­noon, while we are doing the vacu­um­ing ses­si­on. Cape pet­rels are around the ship in num­bers, and a beau­tiful and ele­gant Light-man­t­led soo­ty alba­tross is making wide cir­cles around us, coming near every cou­ple of minu­tes, while the exci­te­ment on board is rising with every mile that we are get­ting clo­ser to the South Shet­land Islands.

Fri
9 Jan
2015

Unbe­lie­va­ble how much 152 peo­p­le are sup­po­sed to eat within 31 days. Well bey­ond a dozen of us nee­ded an inten­se cou­ple of hours to car­ry all tho­se boxes with things from fro­zen fish to big melons up the gang­way and down the stairs into the various free­zers and holds. Which seems to be as effi­ci­ent as loa­ding a coal freigh­ter with buckets. But good to keep us fit! And good to see that all the fish boxes have got the MSC stamp which is sup­po­sed to gua­ran­tee sus­tainable fishing. Good thing.

We would have been fas­ter if Argen­ti­ne cus­toms had not taken hours to stamp the papers for the last few boxes of vege­ta­bles. And at the same time, fuel bun­ke­ring was going on. Smo­king on and near the ship is obvious­ly strict­ly for­bidden then. Fun­ny to watch Argen­ti­ne offi­ci­al rela­xing with a ciga­ret­te while lea­ning against the fuel pump. I guess the die­sel knows it’s offi­ci­als who are smo­king so it doesn’t inci­ne­ra­te.

The­re isn’t much left befo­re we real­ly start, so I refrain from my usu­al last walk to one of Ushuaia’s many love­ly cafés and rather get orga­ni­zed in the cabin that I will share with Dmi­t­ri („Dima“), a fel­low team mem­ber, Rus­si­an mari­ne bio­lo­gist who lives in Seat­tle and Japan. Think about that. But within the con­text of this staff team, it even isn’t too unu­su­al, the­re are many gre­at cha­rac­ters and extre­me­ly expe­ri­en­ced peo­p­le, a good gang. Peo­p­le like Don Mac­Fad­zi­en, our fearless expe­di­ti­on lea­der, who does pro­ba­b­ly not even know any­mo­re how many times he has been to the Ross Sea. Or Jim May­er, who used to work for the Bri­tish Ant­ar­c­tic Sur­vey, blo­wing things up in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca. Then he deci­ded that was too much noi­se and joi­n­ed the tou­rist indus­try. Well known names in the­se lati­tu­des.

We spend the after­noon with the usu­al hec­tic of the first day, wel­co­ming 93 pas­sen­gers, put­ting them and their lug­ga­ge into their cab­ins, going through the man­da­to­ry life­boat drill – may we never do it again! – and having a toast with our Chi­lean Cap­tain Ernes­to Bar­ría, ano­ther well-known cha­rac­ter on this ship in the Arc­tic and Ant­ar­c­tic. At the same time, the Bea­gle Chan­nel is gli­ding past us in slight drizz­le. We drop anchor for a while at Puer­to Wil­liams to get the 3 Chi­lean heli­c­op­ters on board (yes, 3, last time we had only 2, but we are also more peo­p­le now). Good to see fri­ends among­st the heli­c­op­ter crews, very expe­ri­en­ced peo­p­le also on this side of the ope­ra­ti­on.

Thu
8 Jan
2015

A jour­ney of a thousand miles beg­ins with a sin­gle step. I hav heard that it was Lao Tse who said that, and he was quite right. In this case, howe­ver, the first step is actual­ly not small at all. It is a num­ber of flight miles that I don’t real­ly want to think about. Many hours of sit­ting and tired­ness, a short dri­ve through Bue­nos Aires, almost 30 degrees warmth at the Rio de La Pla­ta, then ano­ther flight of seve­ral hours over the Argen­ti­ne Pam­pa until sud­den­ly moun­ta­ins are rising stee­p­ly, hiding the Bea­gle Chan­nel bet­ween them. On its shore, the­re is Ushua­ia. Her inha­bi­tants call their town the sou­thern­most one in the world, which is quite true. Ano­ther nick­na­me they give to their home­place is El fin del mun­do, the end of the world. For us, it is not the end. This is whe­re we are actual­ly start­ing.

In high lati­tu­des – in the sou­thern hemi­sphe­re, ever­y­thing south of 50 degrees qua­li­fies – peo­p­le always seem to be afraid of cold. I can’t think of any other reason why one would heat his house up to tem­pe­ra­tures that remind me of a Fin­nish sau­na. Insi­de, it is hard­ly less warm than at the Rio de la Pla­ta. The­re is no way to turn the hea­ting down, the­re is only a win­dow that I can open. You can’t bla­me them for being over­ef­fi­ci­ent in terms of ener­gy saving.

The later, the more lively it is on San Mar­tin, the main road. A street musi­ci­an and a jugg­ler are making for a rela­xed sou­thern atmo­sphe­re, while tou­rists are wal­king up and down the steep roards. Some final shop­ping, and then it is time for the last night on a matress that isn’t moving for a cou­ple of weeks.

Wed
7 Jan
2015

While Rolf is hea­ding tor­wards Ant­ar­c­ti­ca and will soon send his first impres­si­ons, the web­mas­ter of  Antarktis.net was hard-working too. Soon we will be able to pro­vi­de an Ant­ar­c­tic blog for tho­se inte­res­ted in Rolf’s adven­tures in the far south. Have a look at the Arc­tic blog writ­ten in sum­mer to get some impres­si­ons of Rolf’s reports. Hop­eful­ly the first pos­ting will be published alre­a­dy this weekend.


If you want to fol­low the Ant­ar­c­tic blog during the next four weeks, plea­se book­mark
https://www.antarctic.eu/triplogs-photo-galleries/antarctic-blog.html