At Sea, Heading to Port, January 17-19, 2013

We entered the dreaded, Drake Passage last night. This is one of the stormiest places on the planet as it is where the Antarctic Circum-polar current connects through the relatively narrow passage between South America and Antarctica. However, we have had an uneventful crossing thus far. The seas are only slightly choppy. I awoke to a foggy sea.  Visibility of less than 200 meters to start. 

We enjoyed our normal breakfast buffet of cereal choices, “porridge”, and fruit juices.  The main part seems to alternate on a rotation of bacon and sausage or bagels and lox.  I don't recall if I noted but we ran out of eggs some time ago. Apparently they ordered 4,000 eggs when docked in Port Stanley in the Falklands but were only able to get 1,000. Sides always include either whole wheat or white toast with occasionally English Muffins.  Today was a bit unusual in that we were given an opportunity to spread “Mint Butter” or “Strawberry Butter” on our toast.  A few souls took the “Mint Butter” not knowing what it was (some supposed it to be spinach cream cheese).  I believe it was universally disliked. It was somewhat amusing to see the surprised look at people's faces as they bit into the "spinach cream cheese" and discovered that it was mint butter. 

After breakfast we were given an opportunity to tour those parts of the ship that we had not ventured into or that we had not had explained fully.  The tour included the engine rooms, an explanation of the bridge, the stabilizer room (where the bilge water is shifted around to minimize roll of the ship), and most interestingly the control room in the bowels of the ship.  There are banks of generators and computers that monitor all the ship’s systems from the hydraulics to the consumption of water.  It turns out that the ship does have a desalination plant on board.  Desalinated water is used for washing, the lavatories, showers, sinks, etc.

Control room, the actual brains of the ship. 

The lectures resumed.  We heard from: Pauline Carr on “The Heroic Age of Explorers”; Ian Dalziel on “Antarctica and Supercontinent Evolution”; Rob Dunbar on “Climate Change in Antarctica: Stories from Sediment Cores”; Michael Moore on “Penguins, Whales, and Climate Change”; and, Richard Alley on “ How Glaciers Use Earthquakes to Make Beautiful Scenery”.

We also received some briefings on closeout procedures, etc.  I did spend some time on the bridge looking at the waves coming obliquely towards us.  Biota was few and far between.  I caught a distant glimpse of a Fin Whale and saw some Gray Headed Albatrosses.  All in all an uneventful day.

January 18, 2013: At Sea, Heading North, Entering Beagle Channel

Another gray day.  The fog is somewhat lifted and the waves continue to be fairly low.  All in our entire trip has been one of remarkably good weather.  Ted remarked that another cruise ship following a few days behind us suffered some major storm damage when the winds and waves blew out the bridge windows and injured the captain, expedition leader, and second expedition leader. They were forced to return to port without completing their voyage. I guess that is the reason that they required us to buy travel insurance.

Cape Horn hove into view. It was difficult to make anything out as the fog was still with us. 

Somewhere over there is Cape Horn. 

This morning we settled our accounts with the OneOcean group.  This was to pay for the ship’s laundry, bar, and email accounts.  I had washed a few items in the bathroom of my room (as did most of the other passengers) but had laundered pants, shirts, etc. My bill was in the range expected (around $200).  Just another expedition expense!

We entered the Beagle Channel late in the evening. However, we could not proceed further without getting a "Channel Master" to take over steering the ship into the channel to Port.

January 19, 2013: Docking in Ushuaia, Argentina (VOYAGE ENDS)

I must admit that I had a long night last night (our last on the ship). The partying went on for several hours. It started with champagne toasts during the "Captain's Dinner." The poor Captain is Russian and his English is not that good. He received his round of applause, gave a toast, and left quickly. After that the toasts went on and on. Dinner included a little wine but it was in the bar afterwards that the real party began. However, I awoke promptly with the 6:30am wake up call and headed down for our last breakfast on board.

Sometime in the night we had boarded our "Channel Master" and we had shipped slowly up the Beagle Channel. It is named the Beagle Channel after the ship that Charles Darwin had shipped around the world on as a young man. He was the consummate naturalist and took notes on everything they found including the natives, the geology, and biota. Of course, it was this voyage that put the idea for the concept of evolution into his head. I refuse to say theory of evolution.

Finally, around 8am we docked in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. I found out later that it is also billed as the “Capital de las Malvinas.” The Malvinas are Argentina’s name for the Falklands Islands, which they maintain is illegally occupied by the British.

Ushuaia is a port city and a tourist mecca.  It is one of the prime jumping off points for trips to Antarctica during the austral summer. In the winter it is a ski destination, especially for Brazilians. As Ian Dalziel said, it has the aspects of a Bavarian village.  It climbs up the mountains to its north and many of the structures have the "mountain" architecture with steep roofs to shed snow, wood interiors, etc.

Just coming into port in Ushuaia, Argentina.

As we pulled in we could see two other cruise ships in port.  One was a bit bigger and the second one was massive. The more massive cruise ships do not typically launch Zodiacs for shore landings the way that we did. They are more, traditional-type cruise ships that dock at ports only.

Good-byes were said and about 2/3 of our group boarded two buses for travel to the airport and flights out. The remaining 1/3 of us continued on with the group for trips to Tierra del Fuego, the Andes, or just to be tourists in Ushuaia before proceeding on to other points.

Livingston Island, January 16, 2013

I awoke to a beautiful sunrise over the Antarctic Peninsula.  The sky here takes on some amazing hues.  The colors are not stunning but the range in tones is incredible between the sea, the land, and the sky.

Low clouds over sunlit, ice-covered mountains with the sea in the foreground.

Landing at Hanna Point. The beach cobbles were carried
to their location by glaciers and rounded by the action of the waves.

We have begun our journey northward to Ushuaia and port.  Our last two landing sites will be on Livingston Island, one of the South Shetlands.  The landings were to be at Hanna Point (in the morning) and Hurd Peninsula (in the afternoon).  Hanna Point had never been visited by a cruise ship (to Ted’s knowledge).  The site was selected by the geologic expedition leaders. That is one of the nice things about this expedition...We are going to places that tourists never go to.

Ian and Hunter (geology student at Georgia) atop the nearest
peak. That's our ship in the background. Look at the thick growth
of fruiticose lichens on the rocks.

It was a very beautiful and peaceful day.  The sun came out while we were there and the temperature reached the mid-40s.  We had some great exposures of bedrock, glacial moraines, sea terraces, and a lounging elephant seal in the surf.  More on the elephant seal below.

One of the more interesting things here was the development of a soil profile on the upper terraces above the surf line. Soils form with time and need organic matter (plants) to assist in the decomposition of rock and sediment. The profusion and color of lichens was amazing.  According to Anne Hooke there were three different lichen variants found. These included crustose lichens, which form a thin crust on the surface of the rocks; foliose lichens, which form leaf-like lobes; and fruticose lichens which have a shrubby growth habit and have fruiting bodies.

We also had a great opportunity to go “sledding” on our rears, as there were several slopes of fairly fresh powder.  I took full advantage of the chance to “sled” as I made my way down the upper slopes on my "bum."

I was able to take several photos of a female Elephant Seal lounging in the surf.  She was there for the entire hour or so that I was there.  Just rising and falling with the waves.  She was so close to the rocks that I was within ten feet of her, watching me as I was watching her.

Molting female Elephant Seal.

Our second stop of the day (and final one on the voyage) was to the Hanna Point near Walker Bay.  Walker Bay is an area known to have abundant plant fossils.  The fossil locality was approximately one mile away. We warned, very strongly, not to remove fossils. I did not make the hike over.  Instead I helped the young Czech couple with their geocache effort.  I was intrigued since they were showing pictures of red “Jasper” as one of their clues.  The photos showed a brilliant red band of jasper (chert) cutting across the rocks. Well, once we found it I noticed that it did not have the intense red shown in the photograph they had as their clue. 

This was an entertaining site from a biological standpoint because we were able to find the only two flowering plants native to Antarctica! These were a grass (Deschampsia antarctica) and Pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis).  Neither, of course, would be impressive outside of their locality as they are less than two inches high. More on plants in Antarctica can be found at the British Antarctic Survey website: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_antarctica/wildlife/plants/index.php

Actual flowering(?) plants! That is Deschampia on the right
 and Pearlwort on the left.

In addition there was a colony of Gentoo Penguins performing their usual antics and a clutch of Elephant Seals.  The Elephant Seals are very touch sensitive, preferring to spend their time lying on one another in huge piles on the land.  Occasionally, they belch loudly.  It is difficult, however, to tell from which end the sound emanates.

One of the other passengers got some incredible shots of predation by a Skua on a live baby Gentoo.  The series of shots shows the Skua sweeping in and plucking the baby from its pebble nest by its neck, taking it several feet away and decapitating it.  The mother penguin is seen in some of the sequence approaching it and scolding the Skua.  Which just ignores it and continues to consume its prey.  Nature at its finest! You are lucky that I don't have those photos to post.

Gentoo feeding one of its two chicks. Look at the pebble nest they built.

I wandered away from the main group to see what was going on within the tide pools.  I found a small cave in the rocks inhabited by a Snowy Sheathbill (Chionis albus).  These birds are brilliant white but are somewhat gross. They are not picky about their food, eating carrion, live prey, and scat.

Scattered about this one's cave and in front of it were the remains of several penguins.  It was pecking at some of them while I photographed it. Again, nature at its finest!

Sheathbill eating carrion.

Lemaire Channel and Port Lockroy, January 15, 2013

I awoke to an overcast sky.  The seas remain calm but the light is diffuse at best.  We cruised down the Lemaire Channel to our southernmost point, 65°6’ South Latitude.

A cross-section of layering in the glacial ice.

I am not sure why we headed down the Lemaire Channel other than to say that we had done it.  The channel is less than 500 yards wide at its narrowest and is flanked by volcanic and plutonic rocks that are mostly covered by ice and snow.  I did see some interesting sedimentary patterns in one flow.

After reaching the southernmost point of our journey we turned around and headed back north up the channel to Port Lockroy.  Port Lockroy was formerly a top-secret British base positioned to supposedly keep an eye on the movement of German ships towards the end of World War II.  Of course, it had some history prior to that, whalers, etc. 

Following WWII the base was used as a scientific research station until the early 1960s, at which point it was abandoned to the Gentoo penguins.  However, in the mid-1990s the Antarctic Heritage Trust took over and turned the base into a museum preserving the heritage of the scientists. According to their website (http://www.ukaht.org), Port Lockroy is the "Jewel in the Crown of Antarctica."

The kitchen. The cookbook on the stove is open to
a recipe for "Seal Brains with Eggs."
Sounds like a nourishing breakfast. 

We toured the open museum building, stepping over Gentoo Penguins to get in. The penguins are so habituated to humans that they nearly step on your feet in their hurry to get from one point to another. Their nests are literally on the foundations of the buildings. It turns out that there is a reason for this. The Skuas don't like to fly among the humans and are less likely to carry out their predatory behavior in the vicinity of the structures. 

Of course, there is a gift shop associated with the museum.  I spent over $100 buying gifts and mailed a couple of postcards off to my nieces Lily and Abby in New Mexico.

Lunch was interesting.  It consisted of a BBQ on the stern deck of the ship with some of the crew of Port Lockroy as guests.  Since the weather was warm (comparatively) we ate outside in the fresh Antarctic breeze.  Beer and soda were included!

A picnic in Antarctica!

From Port Lockroy we headed north to Neko Bay for a post-prandial cruise or hike.  I elected to hike.  The hike was pleasant enough but not memorable.