David and Julia's Living Book

Antarctic Islands

Exploring

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

It did not seem real that we were nearly at the bottom of the world.

We stopped at what is named on the map below as Graham Land, the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. We passed the Shetland Islands and many icebergs on the way. Once the ship was in the shelter of the Antarctic islands, the ocean swells reduced, and we were able to get some relief from the high seas we had experienced on our two-day sail from Ushuaia.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The sheer beauty of our frozen world.

What an amazing day we had today. We boarded the Zodiacs for our first time on land in two days and landed on the black soil beach of Aitcho Island. The island was covered in snow except for the beaches and was overrun by penguins.

We walked the beach and then climbed the hill in the middle of the island. From the top of the hill, we could see the beach we landed on and the beach on the other side of the tiny island. After a few photos, we walked down the hill to the other beach. There we found many penguins, icebergs, and seals. The weather was overcast and just below freezing.

Was this a big penguin or what?

Once we returned from the morning excursion, we had lunch and then sailed on to Yankee Harbor on Greenwich Island to spot seals.

The most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen.

What a magnificent place this was. It is a small island with most of its terrain about 4 to 6 feet above sea level. In the middle of the island were several 1,000- to 2,000-foot mountains. The island was dotted with penguins and seals. Lawrie and I walked the full length of the island, which turned out to be a three-mile hike. The island was surrounded by icebergs, some with the most beautiful shades of icy blue.

Once we returned to the ship, we set sail to our next destination and spotted a pod of orca whales along the way. That evening, we sailed for Astrolabe Island and were privileged to see one of the best sunsets I have ever seen. This time of year, the sunsets start at 10:00 p.m. and end at 12:00 a.m.! We also encountered the beginning of the Antarctic pack ice. The Captain slowed the ship down and gingerly maneuvered through the ever thickening sheets of floating ice. It was truly something to experience and quite unnerving.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

This is as close to pack ice as you'd want to be.

This morning, we took the zodiac boats and circumnavigated Astrolabe Island. The stormy weather we had been experiencing since leaving Ushuaia had finally subsided, and it was very sunny this morning. It was glorious but very cold.

As we sailed around the island, we saw many penguins in the water and on the island. The penguins are amazing as they can leap out of the water up 6-foot cliffs at the shoreline. We saw pack ice from the bridge of our ship last night, which was spectacular and surreal, but today we got up close and personal with the pack ice on our zodiac tour of the island. It was fantastic to peer over the side of the zodiac into the blue, green, and turquoise waters filled with unworldly ice sculptures.

Normally, there would be no ice this time of year.

After lunch, we sailed south to get in position for a landing on the Antarctic mainland. We tried to go south via one route that took us closer to the mainland, but we were turned back due to the unexpected thickness of the pack ice. It's a "Shackleton" summer this year.

This means the weather is much colder than it normally is. The situation gets its name from Ernest Shackleton, who got stuck in the Antarctic in similar conditions. This meant we had to sail south via the open sea, and of course, we encountered very rough seas once again. Almost everyone was ill during the afternoon and evening, and I stayed in my bunk gazing out of my 2-foot porthole all afternoon. I watched icebergs of all shapes, sizes, and colors go by; it was a very unnerving experience seeing them pass by your small porthole. As a berg hit the side of the ship, it made a loud scraping sound as it dragged along the hull. I got up at 11:30 p.m. and went to the bridge to see where we were and found that we had arrived at our planned destination, quite far south of the Shetland Islands. I went back to bed and slept well that night, cradled by pack ice, islands, and the Antarctic continent.

Friday, November 23, 2007

It is a frightening place, but its beauty is alluring.

We were woken this morning by a message over the ship's intercom announcing that another tour ship was sinking and had put its passengers overboard in life rafts, and that our ship had turned north on a rescue mission to pick up the survivors! At first, I could not believe what I had heard. Normally, the message over the intercom was about a meal being served.

The ill-fated Explorer. Its passengers spent a very cold night in lifeboats.

I got dressed and headed upstairs to the lounge, where the other passengers were abuzz with the news. None of us knew much more than what was said over the intercom, so our imaginations ran wild. We headed into breakfast, where unsubstantiated stories ran rampant. Did alien penguins from Mars make a false Mayday signal to lure us to them so they could suck out our brains? Had Russian submarines crashed into the ill-fated ship? Yes, we are an imaginative lot.

My brother fell deeply in love with this extreme landscape.

After breakfast, we were all summoned to the lounge, where our chief guide explained the situation. It turns out that the tour ship *Explorer* had struck an iceberg around 2:00 a.m. and was taking on water. The captain of the *Explorer* decided to abandon ship, and so the crew and passengers were all onboard life rafts floating near the South Shetland Islands. Once the Mayday call was made, all of the other 15 tour ships (except one, which our guide would not name but we figured out was the *Polar Express*) in the area turned and headed to the last known position of the *Explorer*.

While on our way to the disaster, one of the other ships arrived and rescued everyone with no loss of life. So we turned back to our original heading to continue our trek south. This event really brought home how remote and fragile we are down here in Antarctica, and how self-reliant we must be.

Icebergs were ever-present.

The weather turned bad again this afternoon as we made our way south, so we were unable to stop at our first planned destination. We continued heading south, looking for better weather. We finally made it to the Gerlache Strait and turned in toward the Antarctic continent. The weather did not clear up—it kept snowing all day. But the wind did die down a little, giving us some relief from the massive seas.

We eventually were able to land on Cuverville Island, which was spectacular. The island has a main beach area where we were to land in our initial plan, but because the pack ice was so thick and piled up at the main beach, we landed on another smaller beach. On the island, we found many penguin rookeries. The snow kept falling the entire time we were on the island, making the scene very tranquil. Unbeknownst to us, the pack ice was congealing while we were walking the island, and when we tried to return to the ship, we found our way blocked by pack ice. The crew used an empty zodiac boat to chop an opening in the ice, allowing us to return to our ship. What a great landing this was and how adventurous.