Usual start to the day, with Gary’s wake up call at 7.00
announcing breaky at 7.30. Must say the meals are certainly looked forward to,
all this cold, ice, penguins, etc makes us incredibly cold and hungry.
Overnight we had sailed to Trinity Island in the Orleans
Strait.
Morning landing was to Mikkelsen Harbour, the site of an
Argentinean Refugio, another penguin colony, along with seals and an old
whaling boat and whale bones. It was a beautiful sunny day and so much easier
to be on shore, we were in the last zodiac home to the ship, after many, many
photos and time to just sit and watch the penguins, seals and people. The old
boat and bones were also interesting to see and photograph.
Just to give you a bit of an idea about getting ready to go
ashore or out in the Zodiac for a cruise. Here is what getting dressed entails.
·
Thermals – socks, shirt, pants, gloves
·
Pants, shirt, jumper
·
Another layer of socks and gloves
·
Waterproof pants
·
Another jumper
·
Rubber boots
·
Goretex jacket
·
Cap, beanie, neckwarmer
·
Outer mittens
·
Life Jacket.
Plus cameras x2, sunnies. Needless to say getting ready for
the zodiacs is not a quick task.
Lunch today was a really nice vegie pasta. After lunch we donned
the gear again for our ‘extreme’ zodiac cruise around Christiania Island, on
the edge of the Drake passage (sort of). It was amazing in this area, rocks,
ice caps, penguins, icebergs, waves, all just beyond description again. I
braved the conditions and took the big EOS camera this time…so glad I did, the
icebergs were amazing, we were zodiac-ing up close, the sculptural shapes and
colours of the bergs and the sheer enormity fo the mountains on the island was
astounding. The photos don’t quite capture it.
We went through bergs into little inlets blocked by bergs,
heaps of brash ice and huge free floating bergs that literally bounced up and
down several metres in slow motion. Mary got a video, which hopefully caught
it. The blue hues and colours are just so hard to put in words. Many of the
bergs look like they have a light on the inside and bits of them glow blue, one
looked like purple ultraviolet light.
We saw penguins up on icebergs in the most impossible
places, walking up near vertical slopes, turns out they use their claws like
little crampons.
Back to the ship, where we bravely signed up for camping out
on the ice tomorrow night – brrrr!!
Dinner tonight – lovely salmon and roasted fennel, not
something I would choose, but it was very good, as have been all the meals.
Up to the bridge after tea, saw a bit of a Minke whale. In
the Gerlache strait we saw a US research vessel, whose orange colour contrasted
brilliantly to the surrounding mountains and ice – the ship was the “Laurence M
Gould”. A bit later they radioed the captain of the Polar Pioneer to tell him,
they were changing course and would cross our path, they crossed in front with
the sun behind them, so I hope I got a good shot of the ship in silhouette.
Glacier, amazing cracks and crevasses.
Looks like breaky, L-R - Mary, Karen, Nic.
Penguins in Mikkelsen Harbour.
A Skua coming into land.
A penguin coming down his penguin highway.
Loved the flippers on the seals, this guy is a Weddell Seal.
Here he is, sneaking a look around the corner
Linda and Mary.
Remains of a whaleboat.
This little guy looked like he was having a bath, he splashed around for ages.
Another guy in the penguin highway. Tracks they make in the snow through many many penguins treading the same path.
A view of iceberg and ice and glaciers and mountains.
These penguins are sitting on their nest of rocks. Both mum and dad take turns to do this.
Incoming Skua.
An iceberg calving, one of the zodiacs was much closer than us, caused quite a little tsunami.
Icebergs
A lone chinstrap, hig up on an iceberg.
A whole flock of Pintado Petrels, some were actually sleeping on the water.
Icebergs
This one has the ultraviolet light turned on underneath.
So many shapes and styles, all come about through different histories of the bergs.
A view of the brash ice etc, where we were looking at the bergs
A whole group of penguins, standing around on an iceberg. One hell of a climb to get up there.
The Lawrence M Goold - the orange really stands out. An american research vessell.
Linda sketching some of the wildlife from the reference books that were scattered around the bridge.
The Lawrence M Goold, crossing our path in the sunset.
Mary and I standing somewhere during the day, probably at Mikkelsen Harbour.
No comments:
Post a Comment