Uruguay

On Monday we headed out of the hustling and bustling city of Buenos Aires, across the river estuary to Colonia, Uruguay. We got up early and caught a cab to the ferry terminal where cleared Uruguayan customs and boarded our ship for the 90 minute trip. We got into Colonia and it was quite odd, as this was the furthest north we had been in over a month, and we were still at 34° 28’ 21” S. We headed into the old town centre which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has a unique layout and architecture as it was conquered 13 times over it’s 450 year history. It is located in a unique place along the estuary as, as all the deep water channels to get from the ocean to Buenos Aires pass by Colonia. Thus whomever controlled Colonia controlled the shipping to and from southern South America.

They have kept a portion of the city wall and main gate and much of the old (and very rugged) cobblestone.

We went to all of the historic and noteworthy places there including the old theatre which has a brick cistern beneath it.

We climbed to the top of the old lighthouse, which was tough as it was built for much smaller people than us.

But it did give a great view.

You could even see the skyscrapers of Buenos Aires over the water.

We went to the Colonia visitor centre where they had an amazing video display on Uruguay. It was a long 20m hall with curving walls and 8 projectors on each side, turning it into a giant screen. They did an amazing job showing parts from the entire country and really showcasing what Uruguay has to offer.

We went to an artisan cafe for dinner and had some great artisanal cheese and chorizo with Uruguayan wine.

From there we headed to the waterfront to see the sunset.

Kind of fitting that the first sunset we saw on the trip was on our last day.

Buenos Aires 5, Chuck & Mike 2

Today it seemed all of our good weather and luck we had throughout the trip caught back up with us. We got up fairly late, had breakfast, and said our goodbyes to our friends of the past 4 weeks. River Plate (one of the two “big” soccer teams here) was playing a home game in their 75,000 seat stadium. Tickets to the game are a mess as they are sold for 50 pesos with a limit of 2, but somehow large resellers get a hold of thousands of them and resell them for 1,000 pesos and up. We had a connection with a hostel that was supposed to be able to connect us with some decently priced tickets, but once we got there, we were told they were all sold out… Buenos Aires 1.

We wandered around for a little bit. One of the things I always like to do travelling, is try something local from McDonald’s, as it is always different wherever you go in the world. Here in Buenos Aires, one of the things was hamburguesa con huevo (hamburger with egg). It was pretty good.

Our plan for Monday was to hop on a ferry and head across to Colonia, Uruguay for the day. So after getting shut down for soccer, we caught a cab to the ferry terminal to get tickets. Once we got there and waited in line and got to the front, we realized our passports were still at the hotel, and they wouldn’t sell us any… Buenos Aires 2.

Our plan was to race back to the hotel, grab our passports, and head back to the terminal. An hour and two cabs later we were there. And were kindly informed that the computer system goes on “siesta” from 1:00 until 4:00. Thus no tickets for us… Buenos Aires 3.

We took another cab back to the hotel and booked the tickets online at the much poorer “real” exchange rate than the rate we had got our pesos on the black market. Then it was back to the hostel again for soccer tickets as they said they might have a few show up right before the game. They didn’t… Buenos Aires 4.

From that point we kind of gave up on some kind of evening event and started to wander. We got to the Plaza de Mayo and there was the Polermo street market. We had a great time wandering up and down the 20 blocks of market and buying a few things… Chuck & Mike 1.

After many hours and miles on our feet we headed back to our hotel to sit for a bit prior to dinner. We ran into Neil on the way as he was with his group here in Buenos Aires on their last day. After getting to the hotel and relaxing for a bit we headed to the lobby to catch up on emails and Neil was there. All of a sudden he pulled out a bottle of champagne for us… Chuck & Mike 2.

Neil headed off to his last dinner with his group and Mike and I headed separate to find a restaurant, Empire Thai, which we had been looking to try since our last time here. We had it all lined up and walked to it, and when we got there, it was closed. So we headed down the street for a while and hunger took over from good sense and we had some rather mediocre pub food… Buenos Aires 5.

So Mike and I had a losing score for the day, but it still turned out pretty good, and we’re off to Uruguay in the morning.

Back to Civilization

The second day on the Drake Passage was pretty rough. We had 5m swells and winds between 10 and 45 knots. The captain had worked the vessel perfectly so that the swells were all coming from astern. We went further out to the west but it made the ride so much nicer. We even managed to get to Ushuaia earlier than scheduled, about 9pm on Friday. All in all we travelled 2,300 nautical miles (4,250 km) on the seas since leaving Ushuaia 12 days prior.

It was quite odd as we were sailing back into the Beagle Channel and could see trees and other greenery. After ice and rock with the only plants being lichen and moss, higher order plants just seemed out of place. On Friday afternoon, one of the last activities was an open book, group quiz. Since Mike and I had some remaining internet data to use up, we were able to google some of the harder questions, and our group won hands down. Our prize was a bottle of red wine and a bottle of champagne. It didn’t quite pay off the internet access, but was a start.

Once the port pilot boarded the vessel and was guiding us in, we had a Captain’s Reception with champagne. This was followed by our last dinner aboard and then drinks in the Polar Bear Bar.

Saturday morning we were up early for disembarkation and there was a great sunrise over the Beagle Channel in Ushuaia.

Our flight was in the early afternoon so we had all morning to kill. We met up with Neil (our tour guide from Patagonia) and his newest group, then wandered around looking in souvenir shops and grabbing lunch from a bakery.

 

We boarded our flight and surprisingly we were on an A340. Aerolineas didn’t impose their 15kg checked baggage limit, which made things much nicer. Looking back we could have purchased many more penguin souvenirs.

We got back into Buenos Aires transferred from the airport back to our hotel with our group of 7 remaining from our Patagonia tour, then headed out for a final dinner together. Once again, back to the steak and Malbec.

Leaving Antarctica

Yesterday morning we pulled back into the Drake Passage for our return to South America. The weather was a bit rough so the outside decks were closed, thus making no chance to take pictures. It was a pretty boring day, we saw a lecture on seals, a talk about Shakleton’s 1914 expedition, and one on the history of women in Antarctica. We just stayed in the lounge rolling back and forth with the level app on Mike’s phone out; our record was a roll of 15°.

Antarctic Sound

Tuesday night we left Deception Island and headed towards the Antarctic Sound and the Weddell Sea.

We awoke yesterday to being a very low cloud cover, but some decent visibility underneath it.

There were 4 potential landing sites that our expedition staff had hoped to go to; however, they were all full of ice and inaccessible. So we went on a zodiac cruise instead. We launched and came across an Antarctic Fur Seal hauled out on the ice.

They are quite the recovery story. They were hunted almost to extinction for their furs, down to a few hundred. Now they number over 5 million and are the most numerous seal species in the world.

From there we jammed our zodiac up onto an ice flow, and went for a little walk.

It was really cold out, with a temperature of -8°C with 15 knot winds. During our little ice walk the weather turned, snow started blowing in, and visibility died.

We still had a bit of cruse time left, and had seen a seal further away, so went to investigate with another zodiac. It was a leopard seal pulled out onto an ice flow.

We got back onboard the boat and began our trek back to the north. On the way we passed a large tabular iceberg. Between what we saw and what the bridge crew saw on radar it was about 800m wide by 1500m long.

From there it was steaming north back into the South Shetland Islands, trying to keep the bulk of winds and waves to our stern (making the ride as comfortable as possible). However what is waiting for us in the north side of the Drake Passage doesn’t look too inviting.

Whaler’s Cove

After lunch we went across to another area within Deception Island. We were at the location of a former British Antarctic Survey station that has been abandoned since the 1960s due to volcanic activity. There are buildings still standing, but they are in very poor condition and unsafe to enter. In the time between finishing lunch and getting ready to land, the weather changed completely. The winds picked up to 15-20 knots (28-37 km/h) and snow started falling quite heavily. We still boarded our zodiacs and landed ashore where we had a welcoming committee of one Gentoo Penguin.

We walked down the beach towards a lookout towards the end where it meets the rock. From there it is a short hike up to a viewpoint where on a clear day you can see the Antarctic Peninsula… definitely not the case this afternoon. Along the beach there were many Fur Seals just lounging around.

They are all juvenile males and spend their whole youth learning who they can push around. Thus they try to push you around along the beach. They have an aggressive posture, start “barking” at you, then start advancing towards you. If you run or back away from them, they will chase you all around everywhere, so you have to stand your ground, make yourself big, and make noise and they retreat and leave you alone.

All through our walk down the beach, we had our welcoming penguin guiding us and showing us the way.

We got to the end of the beach, then headed back, which was much harder going into the wind and snow. We got back to the landing point, where it was time to do the polar dip. The air and water temperature were both 0°C  but the wind chill made it closer to -15°C. Mike and I stripped down to our board shorts then went down the beach and into the water.

It wasn’t all that bad. The coldest part were your toes after walking along the frozen sand beach. We quickly dressed back up and caught a zodiac back to the ship to warm up in the sauna. We had our recap and briefing for tomorrow and we are headed to the entrance of the Weddell Sea. There we are longing to see sea ice and large tabular icebergs. Hopefully I’ll get some maps for tomorrow to show everyone where we are at.

Telefon Bay

Overnight we steamed north to Deception Island. It is one of the South Shetland Islands just off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Deception Island is the caldera of a volcano. It is named due to the deception of it being a normal island, whereas there is a narrow passageway into the large  bay of the circular ringed island. This passageway is called Neptune’s Bellows, with only a small navigable area between rocks and shore. Normally it s completely covered in cloud, but we had good weather, at least for Deception Island.

The island is all volcanic rock and sand, and looked quite nice with a dusting of snow everywhere. We anchored in the back of the island in a place called Telefon Bay, where we made the short trip to the beach to land. On shore we changed from our rubber boots to our hiking boots for a 2km trek around one of the volcanic craters. The volcano last erupted in the 1960s, but there are still some areas of geothermal activity.

It felt good to stretch our legs further than the confines of the boat or small shore landing areas, and the craters were quite bleak and monochromatic.

Up on the highest rise there was a good view of the entire bay and the M/S Expedition anchored a short ways offshore.

Now we are in our short transition to Whaler’s Bay where we will see an old British Antarctic Survey base that is abandoned.

Charlotte Bay

In heading further south today we came down south to Charlotte bay, known for whale watching. Just as we were moving from the Gerlache Strait into the bay we saw a great sight of a group of 8 Humpback Whales from the M/S Expedition.

When we got close they went to lunge feeding where they lunge up with their body to get as much krill into their mouth as they can. Then they went to bubble netting, where they work as a group to blow bubbles to corral a group of krill then lunge up to the surface to get them. This produces some great shots of Humpback Whale heads popping up through the surface.

Little did we know how much more we would have for whales further into the bay. We worked right into the back of the bay, where the cloud came down very low, it started to snow, and visibility really deteriorated.

As such, Mike and I broke out our low-vis goggles to make it a little easier to see.

We cruised out into the bay and our target was Humpback Whales up close. We were not disappointed in the slightest. There was a pair (a mother and 14-16 month old calf) and an individual we kept hopping between them, up close.

We then experienced one of the most amazing Humpback Whale encounters anyone (including our Expedition Leader John who has over 24 years in the Antarctic) can have. The calf decided to spy-hop (go vertical out of the water so his eye can see what is above the surface) while the mother passed by. This was right in front of one zodiac and the kayaks, and 10m in front of our zodiac.

 

And the lead kayak had our friend Patrick in it borrowing Mike’s GoPro taking a picture every 5 seconds.

It was just phenomenal to see how interested the calf was in us, checking us out. We headed back to the ship for dinner and it was smiles all around, after another great day.

Cierva Cove

This morning we woke to being back in the northern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula.

This is in a special protected area where there are unique lichens and mosses, thus the only place to do shore landings is at the Argentina research station Primevera. Once we arrived there was no answer at the station and it was thought abandoned, but we wouldn’t have been able to make it there due to ice anyways.

With no shore landing possible, everyone got to go on a zodiac cruise. The winds were about 7 knots and the temperature was -2°C. As we were going to be sitting in the weather not moving for around 2 hours, we had to ensure we stayed warm. So this is how we dress for an Antarctic excursion.

1. Heavy base layer with base wool socks (I’ll spare everyone the photo of us in merino wool underwear)

2. Second layer of pants and shirt

 

3. Fleece top and outer layer of pants, and outer wool socks.

4. Outer top.

5. Waterproof pants, rubber boots, buff, sunglasses, and toque.

6. Waterproof parka and lifejacket.

Then add gloves for the purpose required: thin liners for taking photos, waterproof over gloves for sitting in a zodiac with lots of salt water spray, or heavy winter mitts for being ashore.

We headed out into the zodiac and tried to navigate through some heavy brash ice to see a colony of Chinstrap Penguins on a rocky island nearby.

Once we did get there we did see quite a few Chinstraps, but with the ice and swells couldn’t get in real tight for a close up look.

They were fun to watch, but we think they thought of us as a predator so we couldn’t see their entertaining entrance into the water. After watching for a bit, we cruised through the ice, and it started snowing.

 

We came across some great icebergs with incredible patterns and shapes on them.

We spotted a seal far away on an ice flow, and fought our way through the brash ice all the way across to get to it. It was a large male Leopard Seal.

It took a long time to cut through all the brash to get to the seal making it just a quick look before we had to head back to the boat.

On our way through the brash, we grazed against a small berg and heard a loud POP! The ice had cut through and completely ruptured the bow pontoon. Thankfully there are 2 other pontoons under the surface and 4 on top to get us back to the boat.

There are 13 zodiacs, one named after each Canadian province and territory. Newfoundland will not be the same…

We were supposed to head further north but the satellite picture of ice conditions there doesn’t look promising, so we  are moving back south to another bay for a hopeful zodiac cruise this afternoon.