Pursuing pingu the penguin

[love_the_life]

About the stream crossings, the glaciers (plus snow) provide fresh meltwater which create lots of shallow streams. Although only about mid calf deep, the strength of the current and uneven stones on the stream bed make crossing them a bit of a challenge. This is the only time I got wet feet as the water whipped at the waterproof trousers and created a bit of a gap. No matter as it wasn’t a drama and not too cold at all. From memory there were five stream crossings in one landing.i The ground was incredibly spongy and squelchy to walk on. The mosses were a vivid green and quite dense.

 

[love_the_life]

I’m wilting!

 

[suze2000]

Looks stunning. I've very envious, but too terrified of the crossing to contemplate it. And it's not seasickness that I'm afraid of.

 

[love_the_life]

Our last activity on South Georgia was to cruise up Drygalski fjord which is located on the southern tip. A number of glaciers end in the fjord and there was a small calving (though I missed the actual event ). The water was that gorgeous glacial blue.

 

[love_the_life]

Then we had a two day crossing to reach the peninsula. This was pretty rough and the ship’s speed was reduced to about 9 knots. The outdoor furniture was lashed down, the restaurant on deck 6 (buffet) was closed, the outdoor decks were off limits and the lifts were turned off. Sick bags were strategically placed around. We were certainly rockin’ and rollin’.

 

[love_the_life]

Sadly on this leg, one of the passengers passed away. He was a member of Le Cercle Polaire, a French NGO, travelling with the president of the group who gave a lecture later. We had had a number of interesting discussions with the president but had not really talked to him. It appears he had a heart attack in his cabin overnight. The captain called us all together and made the announcement. This was one if the reasons we were early into Ushuaia as the authorities needed to come on before the ship could be cleared and they needed extra time for the process.

 

[love_the_life]

So a few words about icebergs. I know you are keenly interested.
Skip to the photos if you wish

The icebergs were so diverse and so interesting that we could have watched them for ages. Yes, I know they are just lumps of ice but still their shapes and colours were so fascinating.

The facts; there are 2 main kinds, tabular which are flat on top (obviously ) and which originate from ice sheets and shelves and, wait for it, non-tabular which are from glacial or sea ice. We saw lots of both kinds. In terms of size ice in the water ranges from brash (small chunks less than 2m across) through growlers (think the size of a Mini Cooper S), to bergybits, and small, medium, large and very large icebergs. Any iceberg greater than 68 km2 is named using a letter/number code and tracked. Antarctica is divided into quadrants – A for the Weddell Sea area, B for eastern Ross Sea, C and D. As an iceberg calves it is named. For example B15 was the 15th iceberg to originate in the Ross Sea. As it breaks up, another letter will be added, for example B15A and B15B.

I didn’t give all that information just to bore you as we sailed past 2 of the named icebergs. Unfortunately was passed B09F at night so didn’t get to see it. Considering it originated in the Ross Sea on the other side of Antarctica over 30 years ago and this fragment is 44 kms long, it is seriously large.

What we did do though was sail close to A57A a 22 km long, 10 km wide and 30 m above water tabular iceberg. It was certainly impressive! With 300 m below the water level and a sea depth of only 290 m this iceberg is well and truly grounded for the present so it’s not going anywhere soon.

 

[love_the_life]

Non tabular icebergs, too small to be named.

 

[Pushka]

Non tabular icebergs, too small to be named.
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Beautiful blue.

 

[JessicaTam]

Sorry I am so late. Dreadful traffic, and don't get me started on the queues at checkin.

Terrific photos, @love_the_life

 

[Flying mermaid]

Beautiful!

 

[love_the_life]

On to the magical peninsula. Because of the rough conditions and lingering sea ice, it looks like we wouldn’t be able to venture as far south as we had hoped. Not a problem as we knew the first expedition of the season ran this risk. Besides it was all new to us so anywhere would be fantastic. Our first landing was Brown Bluff (Brown Bluff - Wikipedia), home of Adélie penguins, those wee black and white cuties, also more nesting gentoos with their funny ‘lipstick’. Although there was a fair bit of snow, this was not the ‘white continent’ yet.

 

[love_the_life]

We then spent the next few days visiting several other locations, including Cuverville, and we really did see a snow blanketed landscape. It was gorgeous but I have to admit a bit of a challenge to walk on. The soft snow meant if you weren’t careful your foot would disappear up to about the knee and it was an interesting exercise to extricate yourself. And of course all those cute penguins again. They really did have penguin highways too.

 

[Pushka]

Gorgeous pictures.

 

[blackcat20]

Sounds a bit like walking around my backyard at the moment, but swap snow for mud

Looks absolutely lovely

 

[love_the_life]

South Shetlands came next for our final landings, one at Telefon Bay, Deception Island and the final one at Half Moon. Deception Island is a caldera of an active volcano (Deception Island - Wikipedia). The passage into the caldera called Port Foster is through the narrow entrance only a little over 200m wide. We had a Weddell seal hauled out on the ice though he seems more interested in sleep than anything else. MtLtL did the challenging hike up to the rim of another crater, however, I know my limits and stayed on the flatter beach area.


Lots of red coated ‘penguins’

 

[love_the_life]

Actually I got a bit out of sequence as the evening before we cruised into Wilhelmina Bay on the west coast of the peninsula. This was a glorious, pristine bay and we were blown away by its beauty until something quite shocking (to us anyway) occurred. The captain moved the ship into the sea ice, not because we needed to get through it, but to park so that people could walk down the gangway and drink a glass of champagne on the ice. Opinion on this was divided but to us it just seemed pointless and wanton damage to this wonderful ice feature. Not only that but some of the ship’s paint was scraped off and stained the ice. Yes, we know it is sea ice and it will disappear as the season warms up but it just seemed so unnecessary. I’ll let you decide. We didn’t take part.

 

[love_the_life]

And parking the ship! This was before the table and champagne was set up. The red colour is paint.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Yes I do think you have to try and be responsible tourists. . Observe and enjoy but minimise your impact. Wasn’t there a polar bear recently that had to be shot because of a cruise boat?

It’s hard to decide at what point you don’t do things because it might have too much of an impact. Do you not do arctic or Antarctica trips at all. Certainly what you describe seems to cross a line.

 

[love_the_life]

So back to the South Shetlands and Half Moon. On the way from Deception Island we had good whale spotting with several minke whales and humpbacks close to the ship. My camera skills are sorely lacking and I only got pictures of the sea.
Half Moon was one of my favourite landings, partly for the chinstrap penguins but also the gorgeous colours and the lichens on the rocks. It also helped that the sky was blue and the sun was shining finally.