Antarctica

We sailed out of Port Stanley, Falkland Islands at 5pm December 25 on our way to Elephant Island, in the Antarctic waters. We enjoyed a traditional Christmas meal of turkey, dressing, vegetables, accompanied by an Italian white.

At some point during the night we passed into the "Furious Fifties" or the area south of the fiftieth latitude. Winds of 35 to 50 mph out of the west, temperature around plus 7 and slowly dropping, heavy mists and visibility is down to two or three miles from the crows nest. There is nothing in site with only a few gulls following in our wake, and the odd Albatross has been sighted.

Had a light lunch of fish, fried potatoes and left over Christmas Pudding. Tonight we will pass over the sixtieth latitude south as we continue into the Antarctic waters.

Sound like something out of an ancient mariner's diary? Or the start of a blood and guts sea farer's tale? Well the above is all true, except we are in a nice warm stateroom on the Veendam and the crows nest is the disco on the twelfth deck.

Today I sat up in the Crows Nest and watched the horizon and read part of the Shackleton saga of his Antarctic exploration where his ship froze in pack ice and crushed, yet somehow he managed to get his crew off the thawing ice pack, to a safe place on Elephant Island, then set off with five others in a life boat to get help. Six months later he returned with a rescue ship and all in the expedition survived. What a tale of survival, almost two years in this harsh environment from 1914-1916.

South of the Falklands are some of the roughest waters in the world, the Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans converge here and with the west winds out of the Pacific coming around the bottom of South America, it creates its own little tempest. Rough and then rougher.

We through the east side of Drake's Passage and into the Antarctic during the early morning of December 27 and the seas are much calmer. The Antarctic land mass is covered with an ice sheet and as summer warms huge sections of the ice "calves off" and creates a multitude of icebergs that float north towards warmer waters. Called iceberg alley, the ship navigated through icebergs of various sizes for the better part of the day.

Just an average size berg

Adellie Penguins

We seen lots of penguins in the water as they surface and dive like little dolphins, and one leopard seal sunbathing on an iceberg. Although we did not see it, at one point four Orcas were seen chasing a humpback whale and her calf. She appeared to lead them past a small ice berg where a leopard seal was basking, and the Orcas abandoned their chase to play with the seal, their favorite prey. They tried to get onto the berg with it or to tip the berg enough to get the seal in the water, but nothing worked.

Leopard Seal

In the afternoon we entered Hope Bay, site of the Argentinian Esperanza Research station. Hope Bay was calm seas, clear skies, and warm weather. We spent most of the afternoon on deck watching hundreds of Adelie Penguins shopping for afternoon snacks. The station itself is surrounded by penguin rookeries and the birds number in the thousands.

Esperanza Station, nice vacation spot

December 28 we cruised slowly down the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, visiting exotic places like the South Shetland Islands, Paradise Harbour and Dallman Bay. Again very little wind, calm seas and a bright sunny day. The sun rises about 3am and sets around midnight here at 65 degrees south. At the south pole it never sets, but goes in a circle, same as in the Arctic in the Northern Hemisphere summer. I have now had the privilege of being at 65 degrees north and south, although this is much more pleasurable than work at 65 degrees north was in the late Arctic winter.

Humpback Whale

We have seen a lot of sea life today, a couple pods of humpback whales, clam seals and leopard seals as well as more penguins. What a privilege it to see this in its pristine state. There is a sixty country treaty on the Antarctic to leave the area pristine and to not allow development, but with the likelihood of both minerals and fossil fuels here, one can only hope they remain true to protection.

Clam Seals

December 29 we picked up a number of scientists from Palmer Research Station, a US station on the peninsula. They gave lectures in the main show room and answered questions about the type of research done in the Antarctic. The ship was scheduled to sail through the Lemaire Channel, but the channel was still iced in, so we just turned in big lazy circles in the open waters west of Palmer. I guess this put some people off as I heard one elderly lady giving a crew member grief about wasting her time. I told Loreen that she obviously never had things go awry in her life before - like the captain was to send his crew out to chip away the channel ice!

Research/Expedition ship, kayakers, hikers, et al!



Palmer Station Scientists

A very small isolated research Station hidden in the bergs

We dropped the scientists off at noon and turned north to head back to the southern tip of South America. Now we sail up through the heart of Drake's Passage, where these are consistently the roughest waters in the oceans as the Pacific, the Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans all pile into each other here and the winds are terrific. The Captain announced expectations of fifty to sixty knot winds and seas of twenty five to thirty foot swells on the way to Cape Horn and South America.

As we left the Antarctic land mass we seen four separate pods of humpback whales. As they breached and then dived with their tails in the air, one lady said that it looked like they were saying goodbye, her husband said she has always had a vivid imagination!

A friend of mine has traveled here on an expedition boat and told me that if there was only one place she could travel to it would be back to the Antarctic, and while I don't think it would be my number one place to return to I certainly understand why Carmen feels that way. What an awesome and amazing place to visit.

We are assigned a different table and dining companions every meal and this has worked out well. We get to meet a variety of people this way, folks like Bill and Karen from Las Vegas, Gerry and Margaret from Victoria, John and Arna from New Zealand, and it is nice to have ship board friends.