Elephant and Gibbs Islands, January 10, 2013

An example of a Blueschist (from France).  

Elephant Island was hyped up by the geologic guides as being a location for a rare type of metamorphic rock: Blueschist. Blueschist is a metamorphic rock that forms from high pressures but relatively low temperatures when other rocks are subducted into the crust by plate tectonics. The low temperature aspect of them occurs when the rocks are relatively quickly brought back up to the surface and exposed by those same plate tectonic processes. Those of us from California have seen many examples of Blueschist rocks in the Coast Ranges or in sediments derived from them. However, as noted the conditions were not conducive for a landing yesterday and many of the passengers were disappointed to not have their chance to see blueschist.

Start of an incredible day.

Dawn broke at 3:30am or so on a foggy but calm sea.  It is now 8:15am and the fog has lifted to reveal a stunning landscape of rocks, sea, and sky.  We are cruising around Elephant Island on a virtually flat sea that abounds in Humpback Whales.  In speaking to some of the passengers I have heard that there were many Fin Whales last evening (while I was imbibing and conversing in the bar). 

She sat there and worked on her sketch for 1/2 hour.
The seal just hung out, almost like he was watching her work!

Well…today was possibly the best day of the trip so far.  We were able to make landing on Elephant Island.  The weather was stunningly beautiful.  It may have been in the mid-40s Fahrenheit (all of the non-US passengers use celsius).  The sky was sunny with enough overcast to make it good for photography.  There were a few Fur Seals on the rocky beach where we landed. The nice thing is that they were incredibly mellow and there were no altercations.

Brothers from a different mother. That's a Chinstrap on the
left and a Gentoo on the right.

Right near where we put ashore was a penguin colony.  Four species of penguins co-existed in this space.  In descending order of population they were: Chinstrap, Gentoo, Macaroni (a few only), and a single Adelie.  Not sure why the Adelie was there. He seemed a little lost.

I spent some time with Scott Davis, one of the expedition staff, working on my photography.  My main focus is to try to get some action shots.  Small aperture, high ISO, and a burst mode.  After that you hope to be in the right spot and get lucky. 

Finally, a good shot of a Macaroni. This one's a little
fat and contented looking.

An action shot of a Chinstrap in mid-leap.

Gibbs Island was our scheduled afternoon visit.  However, the waves kicked up a bit and we told that the plans had changed.  Rather than a landing it was determined that we would do a Zodiac Tour.  There were humpbacks in abundance.

A surfacing Humpback. The fuzziness to the right is his exhalation.