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.