We landed in Antarctica!!!! This morning was absolutely amazing! We woke up to a completely flat and calm sea. Before breakfast I headed out onto the bow and saw a few porpoising gentoo penguins and an amazing sunrise.
After breakfast we headed out onto the bow and spotted three humpback whales. They shared some incredible blows and showed their tail flukes. They seemed to be playing with the boat and do-see-doing with us through our wake. They entertained us for about 20 minutes before each of us going our separate ways.
By that point, all the pain and turmoil of the Drake Passage was made up, and we hadn’t even made it to shore. We were slighly delayed, but set for our first shore landing to Couverville Island. Our group got called down first, so we were all bundled up, put on our boots and lifejackets, disinfected our boots, scanned out of the ship, and boarded the zodiac. We were only 3 minutes to shore.
We landed, Mike making his 7th continent (all before 30 years old) and me my 6th. There were gentoo penguins everywhere! We had about 2.5 hours ashore with lots of time to explore. Our expedition leader John gave us a quick run down of what we could and couldn’t do ashore and where we could and couldn’t go. Then we stepped off the boat and were on the white continent,
We walked our way up to one end of the beach and back down to the other. There were both adult and chick gentoo penguins here. The adults were all moulting. They moult once a year at the end of breeding season, where they lose all their feathers at once. It is about a 3-4 week process which they have no waterproofness, and can’t go to sea to eat. There were also juveniles born this year that hadn’t learned to get food in the ocean, but now their parents couldn’t go out to get them any. A fairly awkward time in the rookery.
It was pretty much a blue-bird day with still water and wind and a temperature of 8°C. All the guides said this was so unusual weather and they hadn’t had a day this nice all season.
The rules ashore is yield to the penguins. You have to remain at least 5m from all penguins and do nothing to interfere or interrupt them, including walking along their packed-down penguin highways. This is especially important for the moulting adults as they can’t replace their energy stores until their new feathers are fully in. However, the penguins don’t have to abide by the same rules, and if they come to you you can do whatever you’d like as long as you don’t disturb them (and they are quite curious).
Gentoos are between 45 and 60cm tall so the best way to see them (and not the tops of their heads) is to get down to their level. There is penguin guano all over the snow, but it didn’t phase anyone to just sit or lay down to observe the penguins in their natural form. It was such an experience to see all these penguins in their natural environment, interact with them, and just experience Antarctic life. We had a great time ashore waiting, watching, taking photos, walking, and just taking in all the penguins and scenery.
Far too soon, the time to depart came. We boarded the zodiacs again and went on a little cruise around some icebergs and saw a couple crabeater seals. The ice is so blue and it just doesn’t capture on a camera as it looks in real life.
We boarded the M/S Expedition again, scanned in, then had lunch as we are working our way down to see if we can make a landing this afternoon.
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