The Antarctic Peninsula
One early morning we entered the Lemaire Channel. We had received the news that the channel was jammed by ice and the captain wasn't sure if we would manage to sail through. The captain did a good job and we zig-zagged between the ice sheets and managed to get through. Then we reached the southernmost point on our trip at 65 degrees south, before we turned around and started our journey back towards the civilisation. In the narrow channel we spotted a group of killer whales. So cool!
Later during that day we visited the British research station Port Lockroy located on a small island. They have both a museum and a souvenir shop! On the small island hundreds of gentoo penguins walked around. We also had a little walk on the sea ice where we met a weddel seal with a cub.
Later that day our expedition leader Martin Enckell received the interesting news that a small colony of adélie penguins were living on an island close to the Palmer research station. Despite the bad weather we used the zodiacs to land at this island and there we met these small penguins huddling in the strong wind.
Next morning we landed at the real Antarctic peninsula close to Orne Harbour. Earlier we had only landed at different islands. Here I built a snow penguin and he turned out to be a very picture among other expedition members. :-)
Our expedition leader Martin Enckell in the snowstorm. Smiling as always!
Our Antarctic adventure ended with a zodiac-cruise close to Melchoire Islands. Here we spotted some chinstrap penguins and a seal.
A fantastic journey came to an end when Ocean Nova was heading back towards the Drakes Passage. Two days later we were back in Argentina. This was an unbelievable journey from the beginning to the end. A dream came true! Thank you PolarQuest for this adventure! :-)
The food onboard Ocean Nova was very good! Here is a swan dessert.
Drakes Passage is not always as calm as this!
South Shetland Islands
On our way towards the South Shetland Islands we passed a couple of beautiful icebergs. Some of the icebergs are flat on top and they are called table icebergs.
We were also lucky to spot whales. The first whale that we saw was a blue whale! The world's largest mammal! They are quite rare so it's not often that you are lucky to see one. Unfortunately I didn't manage to catch it with my camera, but I'm so happy over the fact that I've seen one! We also had a group of minke whales swimming along with us for a while.
(Map from Wikipedia)
Our next destination was the mountainous and barren Elefant Island and Point Wild, which is the name of the beach where Shackleton's men managed to survive under two lifeboats, turned upside down, when they waited for rescue. On the beach you can find a staty of Luis Pardo, the captain of the ship Yelcho who later saved the men from the death. Nowadays the island is inhabited by hundreds of chinstap penguins.
Deception Island is a horseshoe shaped vulcanic island that has sunk down into the ocean and today only a water filled crater can be seen. A safe harbour, if you ignore the fact that the vulcano is still active. The last eruption was in the 1960's and caused major damage to the research stations located inside the protected caldera.
We landed in Whaler's Bay, which was the largest whaling station in Antarctica during its' high days. Here we met two crabeater seals on the beach.
South Georgia
An early morning out in the South Atlantic Ocean we were woken up by one of the guides that told us to look out of the windows. The sky was clear and we were facing an unbelievable panorama view over the coastline of South Georgia. A mix of glaciers and sharp mountain peaks. So beautiful!
South Georgia is a little diamond and it was going to be the highlight of the trip. We spent one week sailing along the north coast and made landings at different places every day to meet the fantastic wildlife. Travelling to Antarctica without visiting South Georgia is not recommended, because it is on this particular island that the magnificent wildlife encounters occur.
The red marks show places were we landed. (Map from nationalgeographic.com)
The island belongs to Great Britain and is most famous for the whaling era in the early 19th century. In the year of 1904 the Norwegian sailor Carl Anton Larsen sailed to South Georgia and founded the whaling station Grytviken, which is the capital of the island. Today there are no permanent settlers on South Georgia, but close to Grytviken you can find a manned research station. Two persons are also employed to take care of the little museum located among the ruins of the whaling station.
Our first landing in South Georgia was made at the little bay Elsehul in the north-western part of the island. Here we met the grey-headed albatrosses living high up in the cliff walls.
During the afternoon at the same day we landed at Rosita Harbour. There we met some elephant seals and one young fur seal.
The following morning we were landing at Salisbury Plain where thousands of king penguins are living. The chicks look like brown down balls. According to the statistics approximately 250 000 penguins can be found here during the peak season! I wonder who counted them! :-)
Prion Island was our next destination. When we landed here we were greeted by some cool beach boys, namely three gentoo penguins who were approaching us with curiosity.
Here we also met the great wandering albatross. It can have a wing span of more then 3 metres! We saw both one chick and one adult.
The next day we landed at Fortuna Bay and from there we hiked to the abandoned whaling station Stromness. The hike was approximately five kilometres and brought us up in the mountains and down into the next valley. The downhill part was very quick, it was just to sit down on your butt and slide down the snowy slope. Adult people were behaving like children again! :-)
The hike is quite famous. It is the last part of the hike that Ernest Shackleton did to cross the island, in the early 1900's to find help for his ship wrecked men stranded on Elephant Island. This happened during Shackleton's third expedition to Antarctica when his ship Endurance was captured by the ice and finally sank. Shackleton and his crew managed to save themselves and sailed to the Elephant Island in their life boats after living on the ice for some months. From there Shackleton and five of his men sailed to South Georgia in one of the life boats to look for help. It took them seventeen days to reach South Georgia. Because of currents and winds they landed on the south side of the island, which was uninhabited. They had to cross the island on foot to reach one of the whaling stations, which were all located on the north coast. That trip is impressing!
To travel the same distance over the sea with the ship Ocean Nova took us less than two days, compared to Shackleton's 17 days!
From the beautiful
Maiviken we did another hike to
Grytviken. We enjoyed a day with sunny weather and it was good to get some exercise after all the days with plenty of delicious food onboard the Ocean Nova.
In Grytviken we visited the little museum, which shows what the life in a whaling station was like. Just imagine living here isolated during the cold winter!
Before we left Grytviken we all gathered at the cemetery for a little ceremony next to Shackleton's grave. He died in Grytviken in the year of 1922 when he was returning to Antarctica once again.
The following day we landed at
Gold Harbour and the "
big rocks" that we could spot on the beach showed out to be alive. The beach is, like many beaches in South Georgia covered by
elephant seals. The huge males are fighting for the females and you have to stay out of their way to avoid being smashed to the ground.
In Gold Harbour we also met penguins, both king penguins and gentoo penguins fearlessly walking around among the elephant seals.
The highlight at Gold Harbour was definitely the meeting with the light-mantled sooty albatross, what a cute little fellow.
In Cooper Bay we met a new species of penguin; the macaroni penguin. They lived on a natural balcony overlooking the bay below.
When we made a zodiac cruise in Cooper Bay we saw lots of Gentoo Penguins swimming around us. Penguins look so funny when they are swimming, they just shoot out of the water in a curve before they dive again and pop up in a new place.
After a beautiful day we watched the sunset before it was time for dinner.
Early next morning we sailed into the
Drygalski Fjord. Steep cliffs meet the water at both sides and between the mountain peaks glaciers are flowing into the fjord. We met a lonely gentoo penguin, who was standing on an ice sheet and watching us.
Our week on South Georgia ended with a zodiac cruise in
Småland Cove. The bay has a Swedish name because of the scientist Anders Sparrman who sailed here together with James Cook during the 1770's.
After we had left South Georgia a lottery was held onboard. The money that was collected was going to support a project to save albatrosses from being caught by long-line fishing. To support the project I bought some lottery tickets and I was lucky and won the second price, a book about South Georgia called
Antarctic Oasis - Under the Spell of South Georgia. The book is written by
Tim and
Pauline Carr who were two of the guides on our trip. They lived in their sailboat in Grytviken for a couple of years and wrote a book about it. Interesting reading!
A signed book with a personal greeting was a very nice memory from our week in South Georgia!
Shag Rocks
Far away out in the ocean, between Falkland Islands and South Georgia, you can find a cluster of large rocks known as Shag Rocks. There is no vegetation on the six rocks but they are inhabited by thousands of shags. The rocks are almost completely covered by shags, which gave the rocks their name.
The rocks are often hidden in fog and with all the birds flying around it makes the place a little spooky. When we passed them the sea was quite wild and large waves hit the rocks. Better not to come too close! The first person who landed on the rocks was lowered down from a helicopter since it's difficult to get close enough by boat.
A close-up on one relative to the shags at Shag Rocks. I took this photo on the Falkland Islands and I think this shag had found a nicer place to live at compared to the ones living at Shag Rocks.
Antarctica
(Map from PolarQuest)
Antarctica is the seventh continent and the enormous land mass is bigger than Europe. Almost all of Antarctica is covered by an ice cap which is up to 4.5 kilometres thick and acts as a storage of approximately 75% of the world's fresh water.
In October last year it was time to fulfil one of my biggest dreams; to visit this remote continent. The trip was arranged by the Swedish travel agency
PolarQuest.
In Argentina I boarded the ship Ocean Nova, my home for the following 20 days. The trip started in the coastal town Puerto Madryn and took us, via the Falkland Islands, Shag Rocks, South Georgia and the South Shetland Islands to the Antarctic Peninsula.
Now I'm going to share some of the fantastic moments from the trip of my life with you!
