Heading North

We arrived at our anchorage on Elephant Island very early in the morning, with a 6.00 am zodiac ride to the beach. This is usually a difficult landing, often aborted, but we were very lucky and braved the rocks and the surf to wander along the beach where there were elephant seals hauled out and a chinstrap penguin colony covering the hillside behind us. It's amazing where penguins choose to nest. It was also our last sightings of Antarctic Shag

Elephant Seals

Imperial Shag

On the way back to  the boat we paid a brief visit to a macaroni penguin colony.

Macaroni Penguin

After breakfast we started our long, two and half day sail north towards the Falklands. There were still lots of tabular icebergs, some with penguins sitting on them - where did they think they were going? We are hoping for 3 or 4 landings there for Rockhopper and King Penguins as well as things like Cobb's Wren and Silvery Grebe
The weather has 'freshened' quite a lot and the seas are quite huge. They have locked the ship down so you can only get outside from the bridge because of the waves. Quite a few birds around the ship including Sooty albatross, Cape petrel, Southern Fulmar, northern and southern Royal Albatross, Wilson's petrel.

Esperanza Station

During the night we sailed back through the Antarctic Sound and anchored off the Esperanza Scientific Station which we visited in 3 groups. There was also a very close colony of Gentoo Penguins

The staff are all army, get chosen by lottery and stay on the island for 1 year. This looks good on their cv we're told. They have 14 children there and the school copes with 5 primary and 9 secondary students. While we were here we got a special stamp in our passports - there's something different!

Cape Petrel

After this we began our journey north, passing several large tabular icebergs, some with penguins hitching a ride, even after several hours. We had our last Snow Petrel and began to pick up Cape Petrels, Wilson's Petrels and 1 Black-bellied Petrel. An early start is planned for tomorrow to visit Elephant Island before the 2 day crossing to the Falklands.

Into the Weddell Sea

This morning was another blue sky, sunshine filled day. We managed to land on Brown Bluff, our first landing on the actual Antarctic continent. There were small groups of Gentoo penguins dotted around the bay and a large Adelie Penguin colony at one end of the bay (No 5). It was fascinating to watch the penguins go about their daily lives, completely ignoring (generally) the large blobs in their way.

After clambering up the cliffs to discover no Snow Petrel nests we carefully returned to the shore where a leopard seal was patrolling the beach and penguins clustered in groups trying not to be the first in the water. We were lucky enough to see it swimming through the growlers but missed it grabbing a penguin. (not sure I would have enjoyed it)

After leaving Brown Bluff we sailed further south through the Antarctic Sound in search of Emperor Penguins. An amazing display of icebergs of all shapes, sizes and colours floated by including one that looked just like a huge scottie dog. Around the icebergs we found the near mythical Snow Petrel - looking whiter than the icbergs.

The objective was to try and spot any Emperor Penguins which might be lurking on the pack ice. This is the time that they disperse from further south following breeding. We were very lucky to spot an adult Emperor on an ice floe, and the captain slowed the ship down so that everyone could get a good view. We had a total of 12+ adults which is really amazing as most trips only ever see 1 or two juveniles. Very lucky. (Penguin no 6)

We also had our first Orcas spy hopping among the pack ice. An amazing view was of one young one which swam over and investigated the boat by swimming all round the hull.

Our objective was Snow Hill Island but as the pack ice was still too thick we went for plan b which was to land on Seymour Island, somewhere that is not on the usual itinerary and not many of the crew had visited before, which was really interesting. Beach combing in the Antarctic, how special is that?

We had lots of Adelie Penguins and also some very strange jelly fish and crustacea.

Heading back towards the Antarctic Sound and Paulette Island we had the most amazing couple of hours with 40 + Orca at every hour of the clock around the ship. We also had another Emperor Penguin swimming past. Just magic.

At 4.00pm the zodiacs were launched and we cruised round the ice-floes looking for seals. We found some crabeater seals and then we were asked if we wanted to land on the sea-ice, to which we gave an enthusiatic 'Yes'. This was another amazing experience as Ilya, the zodiac driver, just pointed the bows up onto the ice-floe and we hopped out (out of sight of the Plancius).

Crabeater Seal

Do we look pleased?

Our next experience was to find an adult Emperor Penguin standing on one of the ice-floes. We watched it, cameras clicking from both zodiacs like mad, and then moved away to let the other 8 zodiacs approach from all points of the compass, the first 'Antarctic Twitch'? It just couldn't get better.

                                     

Emperor Penguin

Antarctica Update

We decided to have a less strenuous day and to take a boat ride down the Beagle Channel. We were very lucky to see Magellanic Diving Petrels during the ride as well as lots of South American Sealions, Black-browed Albatross, Imperial Shags and more Southern Giant Petrels.

Imperial Shags

South American Sealions

Our target was a colony of Magellanic Penguins (No 1) which breed on an island in the Beagle Channell. We suddenly realised that there was also a small colony of Gentoo Penguins (no 2).

Magellanic Penguin

We arrived back at around 3.15pm, grabbed a taxi back to the B&B to collect our luggage and back to the docks to board our home for the next 2 weeks, MV Plancius.

We settled into our cabin and the voyage began with safety briefings and a lovely evening meal. We woke up to strong winds, high seas and 3 of us prostrate with sea-sickness!! Lots of birds seen in the hour or so we could drag ourselves from our beds. Following advice a few crackers were eaten to calm the stomachs.

The next day was much calmer and although there weren't the variety of birds from the day before there were still many Southern Giant Petrels, Cape Petrels, a few albatrosses and later in the day Antarctic Peterels began to appear.

Southern Giant Petrel

Cape (Pintado) Petrels

Antarctic Petrel

Tuesday dawned clear and warm and we were briefed for our first zodiac landings at Half Moon Island.

Putting this into practise proved much easier than anticipated and we were soon climbing the ice hillside to the Chinstrap Penguin (No 3) colonies in which we hoped to find a Macaroni Penguin or two.

Chinstrap Penguins

Luckily there was one lonely individual who spent lot of time asleep but did wake up to show off his yellow headgear (no 4). Several photos later we tramped back across the snow to some Weddell Seals. Above our heads we saw an amazing ice crystal halo round the sun and then it was time to return to the ship and head for Deception Island.

Macaroni Penguin

Weddell Seal

Ice Halo

This was more of a historical stop and we learnt a bit about the volcanic nature of the island, evidenced by the black volcanic sand, boat skeletons and half buried buildings. Apart from Santorini, this is the only other caldera that you can sail into. We had great views of Gentoo Penguins as well as South Polar and Brown Skuas and Antarctic Terns.

Deception Island

Antarctic Tern

Brown Skua

Gentoo Penguin

Track from Half Moon Island to Deception

After our return the captain took us for a journey into the pack ice, just to show us what he and his ship could do before we set sail for Brown Bluff which would be our chance to stand on the actual continent of Antarctica.