Antarctic Adventures

Today was such a full day! We got up early, had breakfast, because again our departure times have moved up for the excursions. We were very excited, as we were supposed to start the day in Port Charcot. The plan was to have a hike and see a colony which hosts three varieties of penguins; the gentoo, the chinstrap, and the Adélie (which we have not seen yet). Unfortunately, due to the large icebergs that were blocking our entrance to the landing site, the entire day had to be rescheduled. Instead of going to Point Carbot, and then Plénéau Island in the afternoon, the captain and excursion team decided, for safety and access reasons, to flip it to Plénéau Island in the morning on a zodiac tour, and the rest of the day would depend on the weather.

Due to the last-minute nature of the change, everybody was hopping to it in order to get into their excursion gear and down to the boot room and embarkment dock. We rushed down to the platform, setting out to look at the icebergs. Plénéau Island is famous for the large icebergs. It is nicknamed “the iceberg graveyard”, because of the shallow waters that trap icebergs.

It was an amazing surprise that Plénéau was full of marine mammals this morning. Within minutes of setting out on the zodiac, Kim, our wildlife expert, spotted a leopard seal on an ice flow. Our driver promptly steered us in that direction, and as you will see in the pictures, we were able to get really close-up, beautiful shots of this gorgeous seal.

Shortly after taking those pictures, there was a call from across the water originating from the boat carrying the visiting photographer, John. They had spotted a humpback whale. We turned around to quietly and slowly approach their position. As they were pointing forward, where they believed the humpback whale was headed. Much to their surprise and ours (mostly theirs), the humpback surfaced literally 5 yards from them and then proceeded to bump against their zodiac. Their cameras were all pointed in the wrong direction, and I really look forward to seeing some of the close-up pictures that they managed to get after their surprised panic and hurried swapping out their long lens for their short ones. Even more exciting was moments later, when we realized that, indeed, it wasn’t one whale; it was two. I was only able to get a couple of pictures of the whales, surfacing and one of the tail as it made a dive ( I look forward to those taken by John to share in the last section of this blog that will feature his and Dan (the resident photographer’s) photos).

After those exciting moments, we took a little cruise among the really spectacular icebergs until we came upon a crabeater seal who was lounging on a nice flow. They were quite comfortable until we came alongside them, and then it became apparent, that they were trying to decide whether they wanted to go into the water. We hung out in hope to get the entry shots, and I got this beautiful picture as they were about to enter the water. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually see the entry because the guy in front of me in the zodiac stood up, as will happen. But take a look at that photo of the crabeater, whose nose was just touching the water when I took the picture.

The unbelievable thing is that we were back at the ship by 9:30 a.m. This all took place before that time, so I was able to go up to the gym and have a nice 40-minute run on the treadmill. I headed back to the room for a shower, then took off to lunch. At the end of lunch, they came on the intercom to say that our destination this afternoon had changed; we landed at Petermann Island. The announcement said we were going to this lovely landing; however, there were large rocks and it was slippery, but we were going to get to see the deli penguins. They finished the whole description and said we would be boarding in a half an hour. I had a kayak trip planned that I thought would conflict, so we headed back to the room. Then when they announced the first group to come down to the zodiacs’ transfers to do the landing for the small hike, they added at the end of their message that any kayakers who wanted to go ashore should come down to the loading area immediately! Thank goodness for five days of training on donning the excursion gear, because I was able to go into overdrive and change into zodiac gear (a fireman would be impressed by my response time) and get out to see these beautiful penguins (only having to break into a jog a few times) and then get back to the zodiac and the ship in order to change into sea kayaking gear, then be down at the departure area by 2:45. (Time differential from change to final zodiac 1 1/2 hours!!!!). Speed adventuring at its finest!!!

As a single passenger for kayaking, I was matched up with the lovely Barbara, from London, Ontario. Her and I were the only two female team members, and we did extremely well. We were at the front of the pack the whole time and were never spoken to for doing anything wrong. We were very proud of ourselves. However, both of us haven’t kayaked for a considerable amount of time, and 90 minutes of continuously kayaking has resulted in a situation where I’m pretty sure that tomorrow it’ll be an effort to lift my arm to shovel food in at the usual 45-minute intervals.

I hope you enjoy the pictures of the kayaking because they’re few and far between, as we were so busy actually kayaking. We stopped at a few viewing points and enjoyed seeing the Adélie penguins, and we saw some green lichen (which is the only flora that actually grows in Antarctica), and of course, there were innumerable penguins swimming in and out of our kayak conga line. Barbara thought one was going to land in my lap at any minute, as they were so close.

The real treat was at the end of our kayaking experience. We got to see a lovely elephant seal. It was not clear whether the elephant seal that we came upon was a young adolescent male or a female. In the picture (taken by my new Edmontonian friend Dale Nesbit), you will notice there is no fully developed trunk. Therefore, it could’ve been either one as the trunk is the identifying feature.

After all that activity, there’s not much to say for the evening. We had dinner. We went through the Lemaire Channel which is usually spectacular, but is presently socked in. I’ve included a few pictures of sideways views.Read more