2012/1/3 ~ 4Roaring forties, furious fifties and screaming sixties are the names given by the sailors to the strong westerly winds found in the Southern Hemisphere. Drake Passage, notorious for its rough, often violent, sea, spans between the latitudes of 50 and 60 degrees. We will take two days to cross it.

Drake Passage is about 500 miles wide. It’s estimated that the passage was opened around 20 to 40 million years ago. This ‘event’ not only isolated Antarctica from other continents, but also made the unimpeded flow, Antarctic Circumpolar Current, possible. The current keeps the warm water away from Antarctica and further cools down the continent. Many researchers believe it is a major factor of the glaciation of Antarctica. Where the warm and cold water meet, named Antarctic Convergence or Polar Front, sees a sharp change of the surface water’s temperature and forms a significant biological boundary. As the cold water sink, upwelling of deep water bring substantial amount of nutrients and nurtures abundant Krill, which results in food chains supporting fish, whales, seals, seabirds and other species.

The Captain watching the sea while navigating the ship

The first day on the Drake was quiet and eventless. The whole day was dedicated to lectures. In the morning, Jolande spoke about the Race to the Pole, the competition between Scott and Amundsen to be the first to reach the South Pole. I learned their stories when I was in the middle school; sailing at the Antarctic and listening to their heroic story, I couldn’t help felting inspired again. I believe a lot of people felt the same way, because the whole lecture room was filled by the passengers. After Jolande’s lecture, Lex talked about the whales and dolphins of the area where we had been sailing. After lunch, Jolande gave another talk about the general introduction to Antarctica, including both its geographic features and political status.

The sea was smooth, we were visited only by some Cape Petrels. Petrel and Albatross spend most of their life in flight. Once they grow up, the often fly for several years without returning to the land. Gliding is the most energy-efficient for them to cover the long distance to locate patchy food sources. In fact, their wings are so adapted to glide, when the sea is calm, they are forced to rest on the ocean’s surface and wait for the wind to pick up. We saw this happen several times with these Cape Petrels.

Cape Petrels resting on the sea

Cape Petrels

The second days saw a totally different weather. The wind was getting stronger and the sea was rough. Only a few people showed up in Jolande’s presentation on the life of Edward Wilson. He was a naturalist and artist who went to the South Pole and lost his life together with Captain Scott. Although the lecture room is at the bottom of the ship, we couldn’t stay in our seats because of the rolling sea. Even for me who were never too sensitive to anything started feeling uncomfortable for a while. Lying on the bed soon calmed me down, then I was literally thrown out of the bed by a huge wave.

Huge waves in Drake Passage

The wind speed reached 60 knots. Not everyone made to the breakfast and lunch. We had to take care of our forks and plates, otherwise, they might fly off the table. One French girl was pushed to the floor and the chain to secure the chair to the floor got broken. The afternoon lecture was cancelled, instead, the film “Around Cape Horn” was shown in the library. The following are two videos I shot on the rough sea. It’s Lex who was making announcement about the film in the first video.

It was foggy outside. We sailed past Cape Horn without actually seeing it. At the afternoon, the wind was still strong but as we closed to the land, Tierra del Fuego, the waves slowed down. We settled our bills on the ship, returned boots and parkas and got our passports back with stamps of Antarctica. Every passengers received an Antarctic Dream’s jacket and a certificate reads,

We hereby certify that while travelling aboard the M/V Antarctic Dream,

XXXX XXXX

has set foot on the Antarctic continent, just as the original explorers that came before him/here. This event took place on,

Brown Bluff 30-12-2011
Neko Harbour 31-12-2011

Captain: Ernesto Barria Expedition Leader: Stefan Kindberg

After dinner, we had a farewell cocktail party. Stefan urged us to come back and revisit this fascinating continent in the future; then, he held an auction of the captain signed navigation chart of this voyage. After a heated bidding war, the Russian family living in the most expensive suite eventually beat the Spanish family living in the second most expensive suite at $2100.

The sun returned by the late afternoon, I finally saw a sunset after several days. We’ve reached Beagle Channel. The captain stopped the engine. We would wait there until the next day morning to get to the port of Ushuaia.

Sunset over Beagle Channel

Sunset over Beagle Channel

2012.1.1“Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!”. This is the third time that Stefan woke us up in the trip.

The navigation route of the third day

It’s 6am. Although it’s still quite cloudy at where we were, at the horizon where the mountains pierced through the cloud, we could already see the blue sky. We were sailing towards Lemaire Channel. Suddenly, the ship shook with clashing sound. “Did we hit the iceberg?” Yes, we did, but small ones. Disc-shaped ice floes covered the sea as far as the eye could see. With the strengthened hull, the ship crashed through the pack ice.

At 7am, we sailed into the Lemaire Channel. The channel is about seven miles long and one mile wide. We had not seen the blue sky for 3 days but we were so lucky that we had a beautify day when we were sailing at the most beautify route of our voyage. No one on the deck made any sound. We just watched these breathtaking mountains and their reflections over the tranquil sea gliding through our eyes.

Our first intended landing site was Peterman Island, this would be our southernmost landing site of the trip, and the southernmost Gentoo Penguin colony. However, after we sailed out the Lemaire Channel, the Captain and Stefan decided to turn around because there were too much ice in the sea and it’s very unlikely we could reach the islands. As the ship was making the turn, we spotted a Leopard Seal at starboard. We got a quite good look at it but the seal was not impressed by the ship. It looked up, turned and went back to sleep. Don’t be fooled by its innocent look and lazy moves, Leopard Seals are the top predators in the Antarctic water.

We arrived at our next landing site before lunch. Port Lockroy small harbour that was used as whaling station after it was discovered in 1904 and later used as a military base for British government during WWII. The station was renovated and converted to a museum by the United Kingdom in 1996.

Volunteers from UK come here and spend the summer in the station. At the time we visited the harbour, there were 4 ladies living in the station. Our zodiac took them to the ship and had a lunch with us. We were all very curious about what they do for their everyday lives. In fact, telegraph is the only way for them to communicate with the outer world, no radio, let alone TV. There is no running water and no boat for them to even reach the nearest island, so they must melt snow and reserve water. The only chance they can have a shower is to get on the tourist ship like ours. I guess during the summer time, tourist ships visit the harbour quite often so at least they can have decent meals occasionally. When asked why she chose this job, the lady at our table answered, “I wish to make some deference.” I don’t know how much this is from her heart and how much it is because of the politically correctness, but it is a respectful task she is taking as an individual.

After lunch, we were first taken over to Jougla Point to see some Gentoo Penguins and Blue-eyed Shags – their backs are also in black and underparts are white, look quite similar to Penguins. The beach has a reconstructed whale skeleton and offers a perfect view of the harbour and surrounding mountains.

Blue-eyed Shags, Port Lockroy

From Jougla Point, the zodiacs took us to Goudier Island, where the British base is operated. Besides a museum and a souvenirs store, the base also has a post office in operation. Many people bought, wrote and posts cards from the southernmost post office of the world. The sun was shining. It’s a gorgeous day.

Visitors writing post cards at Port Lockroy’s post office.

The room that was used by original British base at Port Lockroy.

We left Port Lockroy at 4pm and sailed north through Neumayer Channel and then entered Gerlache Strait for our next destination, Deception Island.

Mountain range around Gerlache Strait

2011.12.31The next day morning, we have cruised around Trinity Peninsula, the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, and we were sailing south in Gerlache Strait.

The navigation route of the second day

The heavy cloud that took the sky for two days now opened up a bit. The mountain range at the continental side looked mysteriously beautiful.

At the breakfast time, there were two Humpback Whales appearing at the right side of the ship. Many of us rushed to the deck to watch them. The captain turned off the engine and tried to stay close to them. Their surface lasted for 10 minutes. They didn’t jump but at least we saw their tails several times.

Morning time was devoted two lectures. Jolande talked about different penguin species and their behaviors, and Lex gave a talk about seals of the Antarctic.

We had our first landing of the day at Cuverville Island after lunch. This is a small island that hosts the largest Gentoo Penguin colony in the peninsula. As we have sailed south more, the weather were getting warm later than the place we visited the previous day. There were no chicks on the island – they were still on the eggs. However, it was a very warm day. I took off my parka, left it on the shore and wander around the island with just a fleece.

An interesting phenomenon we found was penguins’ highway system. It’s very difficult for penguins to walk on the soft snow. Sometimes, it’s actually dangerous. Our guides told us not to walk on the untouched snow because our boots could make deep poles. If a smaller penguin fall into the pole, it’s almost impossible to get out. We could see these tracks that stretched from the beach to the hill and there were some parallel ones across the hill as well. Penguins use them to get up to the hill faster and safer.

Cuverville Island is at the entrance of the Errera Channel. On our zodiac ride back to the ship, we had a detour to cruise through the maze of icebergs in the channel. Back on board, as we kept sailing south, we saw several more whales at afar.

Dinner was early today because we would have the second landing after the dinner. The place is called Neko Harbour. It’s another continental landing. At one side of the harbour is Rupert Glacier. After we landed on the pebble beach, our expedition leader, Stefan, told us if we heard loud cracking sound, “don’t stay at the beach, run to the higher land”. We did see some calvings of the glacier, but they were all small pieces.

There were some Gentoo Penguin on the beach, but we just passed them by and started climbing the hill. After half an hour, most of people had reached a huge boulder at the hillside. Lex asked everyone to keep quiet for 3 minutes, no talking, no photo shooting, just listen to the nature surrounded us. View the harbour from the top, we were immersed in the sound of silence.

At 9:30pm, we started walking back. The hill was covered by knee-deep snow. We could totally indulge ourselves, running, sliding or rolling down the hill. (Penguins don’t come to the slope). At the beach, there was a Weddell Seal hauled out on the far side.

A Weddell Seal on the beach

We returned to the ship at 10pm. It is the last day of 2011. The crew hosted a celebration party and we counted down the new year.

2011.12.30When I got up on the next day morning at 6:30am, we were stilling sailing through the Antarctic Sound.

The navigation route of the first day

There were many icebergs in this region but not extremely huge in size. Penguins stood on top of the flat ice and jumped out of the sea from time to time.

the Antarctic Sound in the morning

Penguins jumping out of the sea

Our first landing would take place at Paulet Island. It has a very large Adélie penguin colony, 100,000 pairs, living on the island. As we were close to the island, we got our first scent of the massive Adelie colony. They smelled awful! When the ship finally stopped and we had a clearer view of the island, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Paulet Island is a young volcano. I thought I saw the the rocky surface from afar. However, they were not rocks – they are penguins, stretching from the beach to 100 meter up to the hill and covers almost entire volcanic cone.

Adélie penguins standing on the flat ice, near Paulet Island

This was our first landing. At 8am, everyone dressed up and couldn’t wait to get on to the zodiacs. The first boat departed with just guides. After they located the best landing site, they gave the green light to the rest of zodiacs to go. Every zodiac can carry 10 passengers each time. With 3 zodiacs in use, it took less than 15 minutes to take all our 60 passengers to the beach.

Huge Adélie penguin colony on Paulet Island

Once on the island, we were surrounded by Adelie penguins. The beach was quite busy, as penguins coming and going from the sea. Adélie penguins can be recognized by the white ring surrounding their eyes. With the black back and white belly, they fit the best to the image that people think of penguins, like wearing the tuxedo.

Adélie penguin, Paulet Island

Penguins often move in a group, Paulet Island

Many penguins had their baby chicks, carefully guarded under the parent’s belly. Most of them had two chicks, sometimes there was only one with another egg unhatched. The guide told us, for many of them, only one chick could eventually survive because the parents couldn’t feed both of them in the harsh weather condition. The chicks’ feather are in gray color. They have to grow fast in the short summer. When they are in the nest with the parent, all they do is to ask for more food constantly.

An Adélie penguin feeding its chicks

On the path to the inner island, there was a ruin of a stone hut. The hut was built in February of 1903 by survivors of the Swedish South Polar Expedition led by Otto Nordenskjöld. Past the hut, we saw a little lake. Some penguins slide on the ice cap. This is an easier and faster way for them to move around. We walked around the penguin colony. Their poops were everywhere, especially around their nests. The fish eating penguins leave behind white guano, while those eating krill excrete pink quano. Most of the ground were covered in pink to red color.

Adélie penguins slide on the ice

Like all penguins, the Adélie is highly social, they often go out to the sea in groups. They are also very aggressive, when other penguins try to steal stones from their nest, fights often arise.

Adélie peguins, Paulet Island

Adélie peguins in fight, Paulet Island

We returned to the ship at 11am. Across the Antarctic Sound, at 2pm, we arrived at Brown Bluff. The name comes from brown volcanic rocks and steep slopes of the island. Located on the east coast of Tabarin Peninsula, Brown Bluff was our first continental landing. We would step onto the real Antarctica.

Brown Bluff

The island is colonized by both Gentoo and Adélie penguins. Once we were on the beach, we immediately saw several Gentoo penguins with their chicks nested around some rocks. Gentoo penguins are easy to recognize for the red beak and white strip on top of the head. Some of chicks were already 3 to 4 weeks old, some were still quite young. They were fat and lively, just like Adélie chicks, kept asking for more food.

A Gentoo penguin with its almost grown-up chick

Gentoo penguin feeding the chicks, Brown Bluff

Walked further down the beach, we reached the border of Adélie penguin colony. They too had many chicks, some of them were big enough and had their own down jacket so that they no longer need to be taken care by their parents. Instead, they gathered in crèches (day care) and only need to be guarded by a few adult penguins.

Adélie penguins, Brown Bluff

Adélie penguins, Brown Bluff

Adélie penguins’ day care center, Brown Bluff

It’s snowy and foggy, the worst weather we had in Antarctica. Soon, the wind picked up. It’s katabatics, or fall winds, formed by the cold air from the inland and accelerating as it drops from the high elevation to the coast. We were asked to return to the landing zone and hang on tight while on the zodiacs.

A column of Adélies heading to the sea, Brown Bluff

The sea became choppy. We left Brown Bluff and sailed back through the Antarctic Sound. This time, we saw many huge icebergs in tabular form. Some of them were 50-meter high and 1000-meter long. During the dinner, our guide recapped today’s activities. Jolande also told the story of Nordenskjöld and captain Larsen‘s expedition around the region that we visited today.

Icebergs, the Antarctic Sound

Icebergs, the Antarctic Sound

Icebergs, the Antarctic Sound