We wake up to snow on this day. This white bird blends in with the ice, and does not seem to be bothered by the elements.
Off one side of the ship, we see a group of penguins swimming through the waters, leaping out of the water and then diving under with dolphin-like motions.
This nearby iceberg provides an interesting photo, but the snow and fog obliterates objects further away in the background.
The ship is surrounded with a layer of thin, flat sheets of ice -- "pancake ice" -- that had formed overnight in the still, protected water around the ship's hull.
Closer view of the "pancake ice" around the ship.
At breakfast, the campers have returned, and we start to hear their stories. Most have had a great time, or at least they say they did. A few tell us that they were pretty cold. It was amusing to hear them describe how they woke up and found several inches of freshly fallen snow on top of them. I’m sure that last night was one of those memorable events for them, but we are still glad we chose to stay on board.
Our first excursion, after breakfast, is to the “temporarily unoccupied” Argentine base, Almirante Brown. The wording is chosen carefully. I would call it an abandoned base, but if it were abandoned, then Argentina would be required under the Antarctic Treaty to tear it down and restore the site to its natural conditions. So, it is classified as above. The notable thing about this location is that it is the one and only landing we would have on the Antarctic mainland itself.
As we head out in the zodiac, it is still snowing pretty heavily, and before long it is accumulating on our coats, and all over the inside of the zodiac. Antarctica is actually mostly a desert, but the Peninsula is the one place where it will get some significant precipitation, and we were certainly getting that today. A 10 or 15 minute ride brings us to the red buildings of Almirante Brown at the shoreline, and as we get out of the zodiac we are very conscious of our feet touching “Antarctica proper”. As we get ourselves situated and our lifejackets off, we see what the main activity here will be…. “Body Sledding”!
There is a very steep hill, perhaps 300 feet high, in front of us, with a line of people climbing along a path marked by orange flags. There has been a toboggan-like run cut into the fresh snow, and at the top, people are jumping feet first into the run and sliding down on their backs / seats of their pants (if they are lucky) the 300 feet down to the bottom in a pretty fast ride. Ok, we must try this. The climb is really steep. It takes perhaps 15 minutes to get to the top. At the summit, there is a knot of people waiting to go down, and we wait our turn. The ride down was unexpectedly fast and fun. There were a few holes on the way down that gave you a pretty good thump when you hit them. About half way down I started spinning sideways, trying to hang on to the backpack and navigate my way down at the same time. What fun! Joan decides to do it a second time. I wait at the bottom and try to photograph her descent.
After sledding, we wander the site a little, and take a few pictures. It is still snowing, at times quite hard. So our pictures are really going to be snow filled today. The only thing we need to be watchful of is to not wander too far away from the flags. They were put in this morning by the Peregrine staff, to mark the places of solid footing. Wander too far off course on the hillside, you could find yourself out on an unstable snow ledge that could give way under your weight, with potentially disastrous consequences. We decide to follow instructions. This is just another example of how, if you are going to go to Antarctica, you really want to be with someone who knows what they’re doing and can keep you out of trouble. Now it is time to go. I take off my glove and touch Antarctic rock, say goodbye, and climb into the zodiac. It is back to the ship, and lunch. It has finally stopped snowing. Total accumulation we are told was about 8 inches.
Dressed, lifejackets on, we line up, ready for our morning excursion.
On board the zodiacs, we speed away from the Ioffe.
Our destination comes into view, the "temporarily unoccupied" Argentine research station, Almirante Brown.
We land, exit the zodiacs, and take a photo of the distinctive red buildings.
Then we turn our attention to the hill in front of us. A line of people stretches to the top.
And once at the top, people queue up for their turn to fling themselves into toboggan-like runs in the snow, and fly down the hillside on their backs.
We climb the hill, and look back to appreciate the height and the view.
And as we wait for our turn, we watch others make their "run".
Joan and some compatriots, picking themselves out of the snow at the bottom of the hill.
As this would be our only landing on the Antarctic mainland (other stops were on islands off the actual Antarctic peninsula), we pause to take a few pictures. As you can see, the snow still had not let up.
During lunch, we learn that there are decisions to be made as to what we will do this afternoon. The staff would like to cruise down the Lemaire Channel, apparently one of the more picturesque spots along this part of the Peninsula. However, the channel is very narrow, only a few hundred meters wide in some spots, and it can quickly fill with ice at this time of year. We are told that no boats have gone through it in the last 4 or 5 days, so conditions there are unknown. After some high-level discussions, the captain is ready for the challenge, and agrees to give the Lemaire Channel a try. So we set sail, continuing south, and this began what would be one of the more dramatic events of the voyage.
It seems routine enough, moving across the open waters of Flanders Bay. We seem to be headed toward the coastline. Open waters continue to our right, but that is not where we are going. After a while, we see what appears to be a narrow break in the wall of peaks, and before long we realize that that is where we are heading. From here, it looks impossibly small for this ship, like the mouth of a creek coming out of the mountainous coastline. There are supposed to be mountain peaks, like pillars, on either side of the channel, a dramatic looking gateway, but unfortunately, there are low-hanging clouds that prevent us from getting that full view. As we get closer, the captain cuts the speed from about 12 knots down to 9, then 7, then 5. We can see the opening more clearly now, and the mouth appears to be filled with lots of small chunks of ice as we crawl closer. We are standing on the Bridge, and it begins to get quiet. The normal crew of a pilot and a navigator/lookout is augmented by 3 other navigation crew members, some with binoculars, all very serious about the business of what appears to be a very technically challenging navigation task. We passengers, dozens of us on the bridge now, stay to the sides and out of the way, in deference to what is going on, and continue to watch in increasing amazement as the narrow passage we are about to go into gets nearer. You can almost cut the tension with a knife.
We are at the entrance of the channel now, and our speed is now down to 3 knots, as we edge in amongst the floating ice. Joan decides to go down to the outer deck for closeup views of the ice, and takes the camera. I stay up in the Bridge to watch events unfold from the pilot/navigation perspective. We creep into the channel, and there are now pieces of floating ice all around. Most are small enough that we can just push our way through, but occasionally there is a piece big enough that we choose to go around. (Just for calibration, we are told that one cubic meter of ice can weigh almost a ton.) At one point, there are 3 large chunks that appear to be spread out laterally, blocking our way, and I think that we have reached as far as we are going to go. But the captain drops to 2 knots and works his way around the far left, between the left-most ice chunk and the channel walls, and gets through. We continue this way, slowly making our way through the rock/ice/water cavern until we get to the end of the Channel – perhaps 10 miles long at most, at Cape Cloos. We have reached the point where we must turn around, but we have successfully made it the full length of the channel. The tension breaks, and there is applause for the captain. At this point, as we turnaround, we are also told that this will be the southernmost point of the voyage. It is 65 degrees, 7 minutes South latitude. From here, we must start working our way back north in order to stay on schedule.
Heading for our afternoon excursion, we sail across what appears to be open waters.
Then we see the spot for which we are aiming. That little separation in the mountain peaks is the mouth of the Lemaire Channel. Normally an exquisite view (we are told), the low clouds obscur some of the mountain peaks around us. But shortly, our attention will be riveted on the task of navigating this channel, and we will not be interested in sightseeing anyway!
As we enter the channel, the atmosphere on the bridge becomes very tense. Extra spotters are brought in to help the captain determine how best to weave his way through the channel. The ship's forward speed is reduced to a crawl. No boats have been through the Lemaire in the last 4-5 days, so conditions at this time are unknown.
We can see that the water is filled with ice. Some pieces are small enough to push through, others require that we go around. As calibration, we've been told that one cubic meter of ice can weigh about a ton.
At this point, Joan went down to the main deck, to the bow, to watch close-up as the ship maneuvered its way between floating chunks of ice and the walls of rock and snow that lined the channel. In some places the channel is only a couple of hundred meters wide.
We threaded our way past some fabulously colored and shaped pieces of ice.
The deep blue ice is probably very old ice. Most ice has a lot of air embedded in it. But over time, the ice can be compacted, and the air pressed out. That is the likely reason for the color.
Finally, we reached the end of the channel. We had successfully navigated its full length, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Joan had her photo taken on the bow, surrounded by the most astounding and remote of environments.
We slowly turn around and make our way back up the channel. Half way up, the channel opens up into a small bay (Dejoncle Bay, I later see on a map) that we had just gone by on the way down. Now, we pull into the bay and anchor. This will be the site of our afternoon excursion.
We load onto the zodiacs for this late afternoon cruise through this bay. We ride across open water to an iceberg which, as we get closer, we see has a series of open arches. The berg is about 50 feet tall, and is long and rectangular in shape, and forms an ice bridge over the set of archways. As we get closer to it we see the bay waters through the arches are filled with “brash ice”, irregular ice chunks that literally fill the water. We see some other zodiacs on the other side, and we photograph each other through the openings. We then go around the other side of the berg. Even though it looks possible to sail through the arches, that is considered very dangerous, as the centers of gravity of icebergs are always changing, and they can flip in the water at any time. So we always give the floating bergs a respectful berth.
As we round the corner of the berg, we enter the area of brash ice, and we literally plow our way through it, just slowly pushing it out of our way as we go. Looking around now, we take in the field of ice we are moving through, and the rocky, snowy crags as high as 3000 feet that surround us at the shoreline. It all has a surreal, otherworldliness character to it. Someone comments that we might as well be on Pluto right now. The cruise through this environment will be one of the very distinct memories Joan and I will talk about long after this trip is over.
Most of the brash ice is white ice, but occasionally we come to floating chunks that are blue and translucent, often seemingly carved in improbable, artistic shapes, with rolling, textured surfaces. This, we are told, is very old ice that survives year after year, and over time compresses the air out to get the coloration we see. Jacques, who is driving our zodiac on this excursion, estimates it could be 1000 years old or more. On one of the other zodiacs, Phil slows down next to a smaller piece of this ice and gathers it out of the water and into a tarp. He will take that back to the bar for use in drinks tonight!
We have been out for about an hour, and it is time to start heading back to the ship, when we come across a lone leopard seal, lying on a small iceberg. It is our best view yet of one of these creatures, and we are fascinated. (Unfortunately, this is the one time that the batteries in my camera have died and I don’t have the replacements with me… but I was able to get a couple of shots from someone else of this guy.) A number of zodiacs now converge on the seal, and he gets nervous, and slips into the water, but like the other one we saw yesterday off of Cuverville Island, he stays around us and keeps popping up unpredictably in various spots. The radios now blare, the crew wants us to get back to the ship, but we, and several of the other zodiacs around us, linger a while longer to enjoy the views of the seal. We move away slowly toward the ship, and the leopard seal follows us, clearly as curious about us as we are about him. It is an unreal experience….. we just want to make doubly sure that no one falls in right about now. Finally, we need to get back, and Jacques gives it full throttle, and we leave the leopard seal behind, and close in on the Ioffe. However, on our way, what should we see but another leopard seal, surfacing in front of us. Too strange! But now, there is a serious urgency in the tone on the radio, and we make for the Ioffe with all deliberate speed.
As we approach the ship, we see several other zodiacs queued up trying to get their passengers back onto the ship. And then we are hit with an unbelievably strong and cold wind. It seems to come out of nowhere. One moment, we were in calm air and water, and 10 seconds later, we are being blasted by winds and choppy seas. The warnings that the weather here can change at a moment’s notice is no lie, but this is the most extreme example that we’ve seen. We suddenly realize that we are in the middle of some excitement, and that we may have a bit of a challenge getting back on the ship, but with much careful maneuvering, all zodiacs are finally unloaded and the people quickly taken up the gangway and onto the ship. Interesting end to the excursion.
After we are on board and settled in, we get the full story of what has just happened. Turns out that these winds suddenly started around the ship, and created strong currents all around it. It blew, among other things, large chunks of ice toward the ship, and the captain was very worried about the weight of this ice crushing the gangway as it is extended down to the water to pick up the zodiac passengers. He tried to keep the ship in position in the strong current to enable the zodiacs to come alongside the gangway, but had to back off several times and raise the gangway to protect it from the ice converging on it. The Captain was obviously upset and concerned, and probably pretty agitated that the zodiacs were not coming back as quickly as they should have. It apparently took some serious coordination and skill on his part to handle that moment. Later, at dinner, we talk to someone who had been on the Bridge during this, and they said that there was considerable anxiety and raised voices, in Russian. Our zodiac drivers may have gotten a good lecture in private after this, I don’t know. I do know that I am glad we did not miss out on the experiences we had, but I feel a bit more sensitized to the nature of the environment and the things that could create a threatening situation that we would otherwise never be aware of.
.
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Back in the zodiacs, we take in the mountains that surround this bay.
Soon, a large iceberg appears with numerous arches cut through at water level.
Portions of the ice is irridescent blue, causing the surrounding water to appear that color.
Through an arch, we see one of our compatriot zodiacs on the other side.
We can see that they are plying through brash ice on the other side.
We work our way to the other side of the iceberg, and find ourselves in thick brash ice as well. At this point, the pictures unfortunately fail miserably to convey the absolute erieness of this place. Experiencing it from the perspective of the zodiac at water level, we felt ourselves immersed in the oddest environment that either of us had ever seen.
At one point we get a view of the Ioffe, tucked behind a wall of floating ice.
Luminescent, crystal-like ice. This was taken just before the camera batteries died.
Unfortunately, we would get our best view of a leopard seal only when the camera was not working. This photo is from a post card that we bought, but it is very much like the view we had, the leopard seal lying on a piece of floating ice just like this.
As we drew this remarkable day to a close, I recorded a few other odds and ends in the journal, just so they would not be forgotten:
-The announcements over the speaker in all rooms. They were relatively frequent. The wake up and breakfast calls always started with Jennifer saying: “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen….”. Occasionally, when there was a notable sight or event, we would get: “Attention all ship, attention all ship….”. The announcement could be anything from “There are some excellent examples of humpback whales on the port side” to “the gift shop will be open in 10 minutes”. And then, occasionally, you would hear the Russian crew using the PA system for some of their communications, which of course were always in Russian and unintelligible to us.
-The computer in the bar continued to get good use, and Phil announced that he would set up a folder for everyone’s best pictures, and would make a CD of the best of the best that we could buy for the cost of the CD to burn it on. I contributed about 10 of ours, and enjoyed browsing other people’s as well. There are some wonderful pictures being taken, that is for sure!
-We’ve had an interesting issue with recharging our camera batteries. We have the converter, but did not have a way for it to easily adapt to the 2 round prong sockets. Stephanie had an adapter, but no converter. So it has taken some logistical work as we share our pooled devices so each of us can try to keep our respective batteries charged each day.
-The preparations for the excursions always had an interesting air about them. When the time for an excursion was announced we would have to put on the various clothing layers we used off the ship – generally 2 coolmax shirts and our heavy zone3 pants, fleece jackets, and then the waterproof jacket over everything. And the waterproof pants over the heavy pants. Once all that was on, and we had our stocking hats and gloves and sunglasses and camera and backpack…. THEN we would go down to the Mud Room, where everyone else would converge as well. There the task was to pick out a lifejacket of appropriate size, and put on our knee-high boots (which always took a bit of effort), and then get in line outside along the railing for the descent into the zodiacs. In the Mud Room, it always seemed to be a cross between a fire drill, as everyone is trying to frantically get ready, and a football locker room in which it seemed that dozens of layers of equipment had to be put on.
-Interestingly, when coming back from an excursion, it was the same thing in reverse, except that the time element was a bit calmer. Also, before going into the Mud Room, we had to scrape our boots and soak them in a disinfectant bath, to prevent the transmission of bacteria (mainly I think from Penguin poop) onto the ship.
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