Antarctica

Antartica

January, 7-9

Antarctica is very far away

and includes the South Pole. We flew 5,500 miles due South from New York City to Buenos Aires, then 2,000 miles further south to Ushuaia at the southern tip of South America in Patagonia and then by ship 500 miles further South through the Drake Passage. Although it is almost as far away from DC as is Shanghai which has a 13 hr. time difference, there is only a 2 hour time difference (ahead) in the part of Antarctica we visit because we are almost at the same longitude. Argentina has a population of 42 million with 13M living in the Buenos Aires metro area. It also has more than 50M cows (and they don’t live in Buenos Aires).

Ushuaia, Argentina (the city at the end of the world) now has a population of 100,000 but started out 100 years ago as a penal colony for Argentina. Before that it was the home to Indigenous people who suffered the same fate as in North America.

Millions of years ago Ushuaia was on an island so there is little diversity of mammals but much diversity in birds. So, they imported beavers 50 years ago and now there are millions of them building dams and preventing free flow of river waters. We saw a colony of Imperial Cormorants which look like small penguins until they open their wings and fly away. As you may know penguins are flightless birds and one of the main reasons to explore Antarctica which has millions of them in 8 varieties.

As noted above, to get to Antarctica you need to go through the Drake Passage, which is humorously called the Drake Lake (when calm) and the Drake Shake (like now where there are 15 ft waves). We are all requested to take motion sickness pills or patches and to always have 1 hand on the railing or rope when walking inside or out. I am doing well in terms of not having motion sickness, my 19 yo grandson, Julian, not so much. He is a real trooper and took it with good humor (and scopolamine patch and Zofran).

Although we are in the Southern Hemisphere and it is Summer, the temperature now is around 30 as is the water temperature and likely to stay like this throughout the trip. Snow is expected tonight. When we stopped in Buenos Aires it was in the 80’s. We dress in layers (lots of layers) because it is not just the cold temperature but the winds on the ocean which today are 40 mph. The reason for this is that the Drake represents the confluence of the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern oceans.

For our expeditions outdoors I wore long johns, a heavy shirt, a sweater, a vest coat and a parker. My feet are encased in two layers of thick socks and heavy boots that come to my knees. My hands are covered with mittens and then ski gloves, my head covered with a ski cap and the head covering of the parker. I think I move like a penguin now.

There are lots of seabirds-Interesting facts

Wandering Albatross: for first 5 years of life never leaves the ocean for land; them come to land to breed. Wingspan 11 lft. And can fly 70 mph. Can live to be 70.

Terns: fly from Artic to Antarctic in a year and back. Travel distance total of 108k miles during that time

Gulls pick up rocks in their beak and drop from height on rabbits to stun and then eats it

Seabirds have 20% of weight as fat so can produce energy for prolonged flight.

Most seabirds are raptors and have dark covering on the back of their wings to blend in with water and protect them from bigger raptor predators, while light coloring on bottom of wings camouflage them from the fish below so they can fish with more success.

Imperial Shag can dive up to 360 feet to snag a fish

Snowy sheathbill eats other birds’ poop for nutrition and smell just terrible as a result

Southern giant petrel mate for life unless not breed successfully and female leaves to find a more fertile male. Produce 1 chick per year for most seabirds-too much energy to produce and care for more in the ocean.

The Skua eats the eggs or chicks of penguins-not very nice but the predators of seabirds are other larger seabirds

Penguins could fly 66M years ago when Antarctica was part of South American continent. Continents separated and Penguins were stranded on the large ice flow that is Antarctica and lost ability to fly.

Avian flu is a big issue this year in Antarctica so we disinfect our feet when going off the ship so we don’t spread the virus to the penguin colony. Also, we are not allowed to get closer than 5m to the birds for fear of our infecting them. When we come back on board the ship from a hike we walk our boots through a disinfectant and then scrub the bottoms clean so that we don’t contaminate anything.

Tuesday, Jan 10

We have arrived in the South Shetland Islands, the beginning of the Antarctica continent. For the next 6 days we will be in calm waters. Julian breathed a sigh of relief. Our first excursion came straight out of a Discovery Channel documentary. We were walking on the shore where there were thousands of Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins. It is birthing time so there were 2 chicks with every mother, about 2 weeks old we were told. As we watched two Shua flew down and after multiple attempts were about to separate one of the chicks and proceeded to kill it by breaking its neck with the beaks and then tearing it apart. A few minutes later a Giant Petrel swooped in and chased the 2 Skua away and finished eating the carcus. All the while the penguins just milled around with no leader and no aggressive response. It was awful (in both senses of the word).

We are now passing glaciers with penguins perched on the bottom and an incredible rock mountain in the middle of the ocean (Edinburg Hill). What we saw was 10% of the entire mountain, the peak of which we were viewing. This whole area is volcanic although not active at present.

Thursday, Jan 11

We stepped off the Zodiac rubber boat onto the continent of Antarctica. There are volcanos and much of the area around us is not covered by ice/snow. There are, however, icebergs of various shapes, lengths and colors. Some have an incredible azure color, and the shapes vary from arches to tables. We see penguins on many of them.

We walked among a colony of 16,000 pairs of Adelie penguins. Half were near the water and the other half in a concentrated mass with the chicks protected. Mothers and fathers share either going fishing or staying with their twins. Penguins live around 15 yrs, if they are not eaten by predators. The congregants on shore dived in groups of about 50, swimming together so they were less likely to be attacked by elephant seals, their main predators.

We also saw sex! The female lies on her back and the male hops on and it looks like he is giving her a massage with his feet. Then he shoots this sperm in the air and directed at the cloacal opening of the female. If things go well, in about 34 days the resultant egg will hatch. Penguins grow from the chick size at birth to about half adult size in 2-3 weeks. They stay with the parents 60-80 days dependent on the penguin type. Once the penguins are in the water, they porpoise, ie they jump like a porpoise to gain speed. They then fish for various small fish and vegetation.

We then went back to the Zodiac and chased after humpback whales. We saw about 5 and they are majestic, shooting out showers of water through their blow holes and then diving deep for their food, predominantly krill, small shrimp-like fish. Whales never completely sleep. One cerebral hemisphere goes to sleep while the other keeps a watch for predators and remembers to breathe which is not automatic as with humans.

We were supposed to climb a small mountain this afternoon, but it was canceled because of 50 mph winds. Then a pod of Orcas (killer whales) came to follow our ship. It was quite amazing. They would dive near the ship and the water was so clear that you could see them like a submarine gliding below. One had a baby and seemed to be teaching it to suckle. After a while, they got tired of us and went elsewhere.

Since crossing the Drake Passage we have not seen another ship. They showed us a geomap with all the ships currently in Antarctica (this doesn’t include the cruise ships that don’t get close). There are 20 but all in different areas of the continent. You are not allowed to have more than 100 people on land in one area at a time, so we go in shifts. There are 130 of us. We are getting adept at cleaning our boots with toothbrush-like tools so we do not bring anything foreign to the land or from the land to the ship.

January 12

Today we got into sea kayaks to explore icebergs close and personal. They have the most amazing shade of blue because of their compactness. Some of the shapes are very artistic, like an arch. We were told it would not last for more than 2 weeks and would then crumple. The larger and table-like icebergs will last a few months. Then there are the glaciers which should last forever but are not because of climate change.

After warming our muscles up with 90 min of paddling, we came back to the ship for a polar plunge. The water was 30 degrees; water in a swimming pool is generally 82 degrees. About half of the passengers did the plunge including me and my grandson. He did a more graceful jump than I. It was freaking cold!! You were in for less than a minute, but it took quite a while to warm up.

Lastly, we went on shore to climb a small mountain and see a 120-year-old hut built for 6 Swedish explorers in 1902. Then ended up having to stay for 3 winters because the ship that came for them sank and no one knew what happened to them for a year. As we walked along the shoreline, we saw fossils all over the place from snails, sand dollars and ancient Sealife that no longer exists. We were told these fossils were 60-100M years old. Hard to imagine. We were allowed to pick them up but then to leave them where we found them. There were no penguins here. Apparently, they like a particular rock structure to build their nests, and this didn’t have it. We saw a few on small iceflows.

January 14

Today was iceberg day. We cruised on the Zodiac rubber boats around a large cove that was filled with icebergs that had beautiful shapes as if carved for a sculpture garden. On one rock in the cove there lay a leopard seal. He looked very serene with an almost dog-like face. At high tide, he simply glided to the rock and rested there to digest the 6 or so penguins he had eaten that day. At low tide, he would slide back into the water to eat again.

We also climbed a small mountain on which there were colonies of Gentoo penguins. They had their own highway to get to the top that crossed ours and we would need to spot to let them waddle past before continuing onward. There were fewer chicks than expected at this time of the year and we were told there was a cold spell and many of the eggs froze.

The colors of the ice are amazing-turquoise in the compacted form, pure white and black from sedimentary caught in the water. The sea was filled with ice that a month ago was solid and we could not have crossed.

January 15, 2024

Today we visit volcanoes, one of which is active and last erupted in 1967 destroying a Swedish scientific station (which had been evacuated, fortunately). As we walked in the caldera (the opening of the volcano which is now lava rocks) there is steam rising from the puddles near the sea. A seal lies contentedly on the shore soaking up the sun and the heat of the warm pool.

January 16, 2024

We have left Antarctica and are back in the Drake Passage. The first 12 hrs at least have been relatively calm. There was time for discussion of what we had observed. One of the interesting issues is the colors of animals in Antarctica. They are white and black and brown, be they birds, penguins, seals or whales. That would be much different if we were in the tropics looking at animals with all their bright colors. Here to provide camouflage is more important than attracting a mate and the qualities of a mate are different. They don’t have to be beautiful, they have to be strong and provide for their families. The more inhospitable the climate the more monochromatic are the animals. The colors of the environment are equally interesting. The water is black as it is so deep, thousands of feet; the icebergs are blue because that is the only color that is not absorbed. Sediment in the ice makes it black as all light is absorbed.

January 17, 2024

The crossing of the Drake Passage was a bit rough but not too bad. My grandson did better this time but it was still difficult. He said it was still worth the discomfort. National Geographic tours are like college courses and we have had many lectures on the Antarctic flora, fauna and exploration. For the early explorers scurvy was a major cause of death and disability on the long voyages. They did not know at the time that it was due to Vit C deficiency but by trial and error, they found that citrus fruits, sauerkraut and seal meat all seemed to prevent the debilitating disease. It seems that this is where the nickname of Limey for British seamen came from and Krauts for the German explorers.

Former penguin who did not outrun a predator

We have just passed Cape Horn which is the point of junction of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans where there is high winds, and many ship were lost at sea. It is on Chilean territory so we had to keep 3 nautical miles outside as we had to remain in Argentinean territory or in the international waters. With binoculars, we could see the monument to lost ships and their crews at the tip of Cape Horn. We should be back in Ushuaia in twelve hours and ready for the 24 hr flight home.

Note: the pictures are a collaborative effort as the passengers shared photos. About half are mine.