Elephant Island, January 9, 2013

The seas calmed quite a bit overnight.  It is shaping up to be a relatively beautiful day after the storm.  While en route to Elephant Island many whales have been spotted (dominantly Humpbacks).

It is now lunchtime and we are approaching Elephant Island.  Elephant Island is where Shackleton and his men stayed while awaiting rescue after the sinking of their ship "Endurance." Shackleton finally decided that the only way to be rescued was to go for help. He departed and sailed across 800 miles of stormy, southern ocean in a small boat with a few hand-picked men. Once Shackleton reached South Georgia Island he returned with a rescue party. Unfortunately for those left behind they had to make three attempts before they were able to effect the rescue. The earlier attempts were abandoned because of rough seas and unsafe conditions. There’s a statue on the rocks of the Chilean who captained the ship that rescued Shackleton’s men. 

Elephant Island with glacier spilling down to sea.

We attempted a landing Point Wild but were unable to make one due to rough waves.  However, all eight Zodiacs were launched and we did a sea tour of the area.

The glaciers come right down to the sea and there are abundant Chinstrap Penguins all about in the sea and on the exposed rocks.

Penguins on a berg. The staining is from the penguins,
they eat krill and excrete the remains.

We tooled out to sea to return to the ship when several Humpback Whales were spotted.  The group of the Zodiacs ended up chasing them about for quite some time (probably an hour or so).  The whales put on quite a display.  Surfacing, blowing out, rolling on their sides (exposing their flippers), and doing head stands (tails extended).  However, after awhile the consensus was that we were getting cold and we returned to the ship.

Close-up of a Pintado Petrel in flight.

After we left that area we headed over to the east side of the island.  The Pintado Petrels and other seabirds were abundant.  We also spotted a number of Fin Whales.  However, the photo opportunities for the Fin Whales were few.  Hopefully we’ll have more as we move forward.