Travel - Antarctica

Our Antarctic Cruise

December 19 - 28, 2024

In 1998, we went rafting in the Grand Canyon where Uncle Malcolm had a bright idea. Year 2000 was fast approaching, so he wanted to celebrate on New Year's Eve.

Everyone counts down to midnight, followed by loud cheers and wishing each other “Happy New Year!” Malcolm, professor of mathematics, pointed out that the best place to do that was at a geographic pole. At those two locations, a few steps take you into another time zone. An hour later, you get to celebrate midnight all over again! And again and again, up to 24 times!

We lost Malcolm to a heart attack shortly after that trip. Antarctica has been on the list ever since, as a kind of tribute to him. My Dad especially wanted to go, and he decided it was time!

At right, Beagle Channel as we depart from Ushuaia, Argentina.

Whales

A shout on the top deck, “Whale!”

Too many people were crowding the railing up front, but I could see that we would pass the whale to starboard. So I ran to the port side bridge wing with my camera.

Sure enough, a humpback was soon below. The blow happens first, as soon as the whale reaches the surface. With a mist of water in the air, the breathing sounds are quite loud this close. Then the whale curls downward, showing its distinctive hump with the small dorsal fin. Finally tail flukes show as it descends again.

We continued to see whales throughout the trip. Spouts from blows pop up often, near and far, as we cruise from place to place. Sometimes huge heads and mouths rise above the waves as they feed.

One whale lifted his tail up and slammed the flukes down to make a loud crashing splash. He repeated this again and again as we sailed by.

Our crew's whale expert explained that he was saying, “Look at me!” It's a male mating behavior, but normally done elsewhere at a different time of year. Whales come to Antarctica to feed on abundant krill, not to mate, so that showoff must be a juvenile.

Neko Harbour

During the night, our ship arrived at Neko Harbour. In the morning, we suited up, launched the zodiacs, and went on land to visit a penguin colony.

On shore, deep snow surrounds large rocky mounds. Each mound is populated with nests of pebbles and noisy Gentoo penguins. Those penguins come and go on paths called ‘penguin highways’. If you stand on a highway in its way, a penguin will wait politely until you move.

During our three days sailing the Drake Passage, we learned not to interfere with penguins like this. In fact, there are quite a few rules of human behavior around wildlife in Antarctica. The goal is to prevent spreading diseases and to preserve the pristine wilderness.

Penguins are a bit goofy. They do not walk; they waddle and hop. They drop to their bellies and slide. They pick up little stones and carry them around. They lift their heads up and trumpet. Their colonies are quite dirty, and the birds get messy too. Mostly, they seem to squabble among themselves.

The goofy photo above is Amelia's!

The penguins were nesting during our visit. The ones lying on eggs usually had their eyes closed. To see those eggs, you just wait for a penguin to stand up, perhaps changing from one parent to the other. I didn't have the patience for that.

We all climbed this hill to look down on the glacier and the penguins. That's Oliver on the peak!

On this first morning, we had warm weather and moments of blue sky. I had dressed for “Antarctica”, so I ended up hot and sweaty on this excursion. On later days, we had clouds, fog, rain, and snow, even though it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere. It took me the whole trip to figure out how to dress for Antarctic weather!

Our ship, Ocean Endeavour, is an ‘expedition ship’. The plan was for two excursions each day, one in the morning and another after lunch. We got on and off from those large doors and gangways near the waterline. When everything was moving in an ocean swell, stepping on and off was a bit tricky!

Polar Ice

Throughout the trip, we were frequently surrounded by ice. Fortunately, the stuff is endlessly fascinating.

At some point, the iceberg below has rolled. The smooth part used to be underwater.

As we motored past in the zodiac, I once saw a pretty big iceberg in the act of rolling over. That's quite dramatic!

On the ship, we frequently sailed past glaciers like the one on the right. It's actually well behind the penguin rookery, but it's huge. When we arrived at Neko Harbour, big pieces of this glacier fell off into the sea. I suspect that the ship's wake can trigger that.

This polar ice is not, of course, the same color as ice cubes in your drink. The reason for that is interesting too.

Paradise Bay

Four of us Tobeys joined the photography program led by Jarryd Salem and Adrian Wlodarczyk. That's Jarryd in red driving our zodiac below. We had a great time and learned a lot with these guys.

At Paradise Bay, we drove to Base Brown in the zodiacs. An Argentine research station, it was not occupied when we visited. But there was a colony of penguins there, wandering among the buildings as if they were scientists!

In a quiet cove beyond the research station, we found these birds. They are blue-eyed shags, specifically the Antarctic version.

Under an overhang high up on a cliff, we found their rookery. The chicks were so hard to spot that I didn't see them until I looked at my photos much later. We could not have gotten such shots without the long lenses on loan from the photo program.

Polar Plunge

One morning, it was too foggy to take the ship close to land for an excursion, so we went swimming in the ocean!

Here are Dom, Amelia, Oliver, and Wendy, clockwise from top left. Max is flipping in the center. Julie Chandelier and Jarryd Salem took these plunge photos.

As I prepared to jump, I thought it would be so cold that my heart would stop. Turns out, the water felt warmer than expected, at -0.5 degrees celsius!

(Salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water, so polar seawater goes negative.)

Here I am, enjoying a pleasant summer dip. Not far away, icebergs are floating by and whales are blowing!

That rope is in case the crew needs to reel any of us back in. They also had the doctor handy. As soon as we got back on the ship, they had shots of vodka for us. One hundred forty four passengers took the plunge!

Oliver and Amelia liked it so much they went back a second time!

Melchior Islands

That afternoon, Jarryd and Adrian took our zodiacs into a small cove overshadowed by towering ice and snow. This was within the group of Melchior Islands.

There we found dozens of Wilson's storm petrels. These small birds fly just above the water with their feet barely touching, ready to grab some food.

They moved so quickly, it was difficult to get a photo. But Oliver got this shot!

Nearby, we found all three local penguin species close together. Gentoos have an orange beak and a white patch on top. Adélies have plain black heads with a white ring around the eye. And chinstraps are black and white with a stripe under the beak.

These three are called brush-tailed penguins, because their stiff, pointed tail feathers resemble a brush. They use their tails to help balance themselves on land.

The biggest penguins, Emperors, live quite far away on the Antarctic mainland. We didn't see any of those.

Sprightly Island

As the sea was choked with small ice cubes, larger chunks, and a few big bergs, our zodiac drivers showed remarkable determination to move forward. The simplest way was just to motor through the ice, ignoring horrible noises from the propeller!

But the guys had a trick up their sleeves. They'd gently nose the bow up against a floating boulder of ice, then push hard with the outboard motor. This would save the propeller from chewing on ice as our captured boulder bulldozed through floating chunks.

Can you swim fast enough to lift your whole body clear out of the water? Nope, neither can I. But penguins can. It's called porpoising.

In contrast to their awkwardness on land, penguins are fast and graceful in the water. Our zodiacs were frequently passed by and sometimes surrounded by groups of swimming penguins, called rafts. They went around our boat and sometimes under us, on their way to and fro.

We also found penguins on icebergs, large and small. Usually, they just stood there looking around, but occasionally they'd waddle to the edge and dive in.

Getting onto an iceberg was more remarkable. From the water they could leap high into the air, landing awkwardly on the ice.

Sometimes they misjudged this process, like a gymnast unable to stick the landing, and they tumbled back into the sea! Then they'd just try again. I think all the second jumps I saw were successful.

I liked that penguins on the water are clean, making better photographs. On land, they are often smeared with dirt and poop. Some people said that penguin colonies are smelly, but it wasn't so bad to me.

Harry Island

During a very foggy afternoon, we got snowed on at Harry Island.

We saw lots of whales, far more than these three, but they were relatively far away so my photos are dim and obscured by fog and snow. I would have gotten a great shot if we had been eaten!

Adrian, our intrepid photography leader, is above driving the zodiac. And that's Amelia, bundled up in the cold. She's having so much fun!

Palaver Point

After some overnight rain, we spent a grey morning at Palaver Point on Two Hummock Island.

Here we found a colony of chinstrap penguins, with several rocky mounds topped by nests.

Penguin colonies are always noisy as the birds squawk at each other, but I watched quite an argument among the penguins above.

One guy was walking across the top of the mound, among the nests. But he must have been in the wrong place, because all the others got mad. As the squawking got louder, they all went after him, pecking and pushing. They pushed him right off the mound!

He tumbled and bounced down the rocks, falling more than 15 feet. Eventually, he landed on the snow, got back to his feet, and stood there as if stunned.

Mikkelsen Harbour

As we arrived on the beach at Mikkelsen Harbour, a big elephant seal was resting on the sand. There is a gentoo rookery just beyond the beach, and a huge pile of old whale bones next to it, but we were all taking pictures of the sleepy seal.

Then a second seal came lumbering out of the water. Both were presumably male, but neither had the distinctive overhanging snout. Our staff experts said that meant the seals were young.

Well, the one on the beach didn't like the newcomer at all. With a lot of roaring, they both started to fight. It continued for a long time, eventually going out into the water.

Our shore visits were only an hour long, so I had to move on if I wanted to see anything more of the site. But when I got back in the zodiac to leave, the seals were still going at it in the water.

As we were watching the seals argue, this little guy was running around near our feet. It is a snowy sheathbill. They are also called “shit chickens” because they eat penguin poop. Oliver took that photo!

Not far from the beach, this Weddell seal was sleeping on the snow. It just lay there with its eyes closed as dozens of us took photos. Eventually, our patience was rewarded as it lifted its head and looked at us for a moment!

An Incredible Adventure!

We were at the Antarctic Peninsula for only 4 days. We also had 3 days sailing to get there and another 3 sailing back. For all that time, Vincent was our waiter in the dining room. He was fantastic, as were all the crew and expedition guides.

Adrian and Jarryd promised that we could circle the same iceberg 10 times in the photography program. And sure enough, we all got some great shots!

But the gear they loaned us proved that I need a new camera. I'll start with a great lens, probably a 100 to 400 zoom like the one Oliver used. Of course Max, shown below, wanted the biggest lens, a 200 to 600!

Seven Tobeys went on this trip: Papasan, Dom, Wendy, Oliver, Amelia, Max, and myself. Christina was scheduled to join us, but she came down with an illness that prevented it. We all had a great time, but we certainly missed Christina. Here are Oliver, Amelia, and Max, all together at Neko Harbour. (Jarryd took this photo)

At 92, Papasan was the oldest one on the ship. He also had a great time, even though he chickened out on the polar plunge. Thank you, Dad, for instigating and arranging the trip!

During the voyage, we were just 120 miles north of the Antarctic Circle, and we were there during the summer solstice. Sunset was right at midnight, and sunrise was at 2:16 am. I took this photo during those two hours of darkest night, around 1 am!