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Yearly Archives: 2015


Decep­ti­on Island

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.

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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.

Half­moon Island

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.

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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!

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Dra­ke Pas­sa­ge

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.

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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.

Ushua­ia & Bea­gle Chan­nel

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.

Ushua­ia

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.

Ant­ar­c­tic blog rea­dy to go in time

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

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