Antarctica and Beyond!: Day 10 – 5 January 2013. Yalour Islands, Pleneau Island

Happy Birthday Sue, hope you had a lovely birthday. Did you and Emma get my cards yet?

Today’s wake up call was an early one from Gary at 6.00am, as we are about to sail into the very scenic Lemaire Channel.

We dressed warmly and went up to the flybridge (the level above the bridge and open on all sides) got a cuppa in our special Aurora mugs and about 20 other expeditioners, to watch the entry to the channel – this is heralded by St Bernard’s Mtn and Una’s Peaks (commonly Una’s tits) standing sentinel on the left and Brood Island on the right.

We waved hello to the ‘National Geographic Explorer – who sailed by on the other side of Brood Island just prior to our entering the channel.

The sun was sneaking through to hit the peaks with a touch of light as we neared the Channel mouth. The Channel actually looked impenetrable, being chock-a-block with icebergs…but in Captain Yuri and crew we trust…

The channel was smattered with brash ice and bergy bits, we wait for the crunch and grind. It really was a slalom course down the channel between the bergs with towering mountains either side up to 1000m high and a the channel another 1000m deep, sheer sided mountains continued under the water, so in reality we are sailing through a long flooded valley.

We passed between Booth Island on the right and the Antarctic continent on the left. We saw the last of the Gentoo and Chinstrap colonies.

The Lemaire Channel is 11 kilometres, 1600m wide and 1km deep in places.

We had amazing vistas with mountains and glaciers either side, icebergs and gentoos surfing the bow wave.

I continually marvel at the vastness of it all and the sheer courage and guts of the early explorers to tackle the continent.

The sun hit the ship at 7.05 to warm us a bit and a humpback whale made an appearance.

So it continued, mountain after mountain – Mt Scott, Mt Shackleton, Mt Goos, Mt Mill.

We saw whale fins, blows and tails, icebergs and penguins.

Can never tire of the stunning vistas Antarctica affords us. We have to tear ourselves away for late 8.00am breaky.

Our first landing for the day was Yalour Islands, we had Robyn again and while enroute we came across two sleeping humpback whales, we glided to within 10 metres and the whales weren’t perturbed at all. We chased for a little while, but left for a possible leopard seal on an icefloe, we watched for ages, as he did not much, then a group of Adelies (food for a leopard seal) jumped up onto the berg, once they realised what it was they retreated to the water. As other zodiacs approached he lazily slid off into the water.

We then came beside an iceberg with some Adelies on top, they were most curious about us and kept coming over to look at us. They are a really curious mob these guys…most entertaining to watch.

We saw some more humpbacks, and then had to head for the original destination – Yalour Islands. We arrived to a rocky island with some ice. Penguins mainly congregate on the highest peaks, so the top of rocky outcrops, we helped a couple of people up to a position where we had our VTAE group photos. Poor Lyn had been crooks with a gastro and was washed right out, so we helped her back to the zodiac before photographing a lovely family of penguins with two very cute chicks. We saw mum and dad swap chick sitting duties.

Also amazing were the mosses and grasses in the rocks, some amazing greens, black, yellow and orange colours – which is a nice addition to the primarily white and dark colours of the Antarctic.

We then climbed to a higher point and saw a larger colony of Adelie’s with chicks everywhere, also one odd Chinstrap. Skua’s were swooping and we spotted a Skua and chick too.

To get to the zodiac we bum slid down the snow – great fun.

This morning was the southernmost point of the cruise, so now we are basically heading north again.

After soup and salad lunch we are headed north for Pleneau Island via Penola Strait.

Once we had anchored it was all systems go for another zodiac cruise around the iceberg graveyard at Pleneau Island. Sappho was at the helm for her first time this trip. We cruised around for about 2 and half hours, viewing many bergs, a crabeater seal, leopard seals, penguins and some whales.

The bergs were magnificent, so many different shapes, sizes, some glacial icecaps, blues like your wouldn’t believe Lots of opportunity to see just how much is under the water, at times the underneath part extended many metres out for the bit above water, creating another blue hue in the water.

Some bergs were floating and rocking up and down, others are grounded on the rocks below.

It got quite blowy/choppy and cold so we headed back towards Polar Pioneer, thinking we were woosing out, we were pretty much the last group or two back – good job Sappho! When back on ship and back into normal clothes they announced the polar plunge – eeergh! OMG I wanted too, but was basically scared, had convinced myself if there was no sun, it was no swim. Mary convinced to ‘tog up’ and have a look. The excitement got the better of me, so I stripped down and was second to go off the gangplank, only 11 passengers braved it, plus some crew. It was REALLY not as bad as I thought.

We had to walk down the gangway stairs to the bottom grille which was about 20 cm in the water then…jump in. Matt was there on the gangplank in his dry suit, to assist us out. I couldn’t believe that once back up on deck, I felt warm in just togs. Glad I did it and would do it again. Big thanks to Mary for extra ‘encouragement’.

Off to the bar after playing with some photos for the Cocktail of the day –aptly named Rosie Cheeks in honour of the Polar Plunge – then off to dinner.

Nice chatting to Sue and Alex, a lovely couple from Sydney. Alex is a librarian at the Library of NSW, really interesting and well travelled too.

Today Anna, Mary and I are writing the Ship’s log, which goes into a book or electronic capture of the cruise, with entries completed daily by some of the expeditioners. We learnt yesterday that Alex sketches, so he has provided a sketch of the Adelies at Yalour Islands for the log, absolutely fantastic skills, the sketch is such a good capture of the penguins. So after dinner of Goulash and polenta, we returned to the bar to write the log for the day. Also asked John – a kayaker- to add a bit as they had had a WHALE of a day – some extremely close humpback encounters and some ‘out of this world’ photos. (was contemplating the kayaking when we first booked, but thank goodness we didn’t, these guys are all very experienced and it has been pretty ‘extreme’)

LEMAIRE CHANNEL

ZODIAC CRUISE TO YALOUR ISLANDS

This is what a zodiac full of whale papparazzi look like.

Humpback whale - up close and personal.

A little bit of a whale tail.

Leopard Seal

Leopard Seal- love these flippers.

It looks like he wouldn't hurt a fly...but that's not the case with these guys - they eat penguins and have killed a woman who was snorkelling with them, researching the leopard seals.