Last night we were cruising outside the cover of the Antarctic Peninsula islands so things got a little rockier on the boat. Since a morning landing wasn’t planned, we were woken up to breakfast rather than an earlier wake-up call. After a quick buffet breakfast we were just waiting and enjoying a relaxing morning when the address system notified us there were two breaching humpback whales off the starboard side.
We were scheduled to cross the Antarctic Circle around 10am cutting back from the open water into Crystal Sound towards our target of Detaille Island.
The captain had a countdown over the address system, as all of us gathered in the lounge getting mimosas to celebrate the occasion. Then we all went out on deck for a big group picture.
We had lunch and closed in on Detaille Island. Detaille Island is a former British research station from the 1950s, but was abandoned a few years later due to problems supplying it with so much ice in the Crystal Sound.
As you can see, there was a lot of ice blocking out the island and the winds were 25 knots, gusting to 35 knots. With that it was impossible to make a landing there. We decided to go a little further south and one of the bridge officers saw a random area with not much wind so the ship went in that direction. Nobody knew what was over there, but it looked like there could be some nice ice to cruise through on a zodiac. As we proceeded closer, the expedition staff saw some rocks with penguins on them. We are too far south for more Gentoos, so it had to be Adelies (which should all be out to sea by now). We were in uncharted waters, but our ship had sonar (not many ships our size have it) so we were able to proceed to a safe area to launch zodiacs. The expedition launched a scout to see if a landing could work.
Sometimes you just have to take what Antarctica gives you. It took going through multiple charts to find a name and we were headed to the Mist Islands (or Mist Rocks). No expedition ship has ever been there. Every landing has to submit a “post visit report” and all the expedition ships have a copy of every report since the 1970s, and there isn’t a mention of it. Odds are we are the very first people to set foot on this island. We were a true expedition!
The island was fairly small so half of us started with a landing and the rest on a zodiac cruise through icebergs, and then we switched. On the island we had a bunch of adult Adelies that were moulting and some juvenile fur seal males.
The fur seals are pretty much big dogs. They bark and whine and the males spend their whole lives trying to become the “alpha wolf”. The funniest thing is that the “big bad male” sound exactly mimics a whining dog. It is quite hilarious. The Adelie Penguins were moulting all over, and didn’t look like they enjoyed it any more than the Gentoos we saw previously. This one was scratching off old feathers and letting them sail into the wind.
Normally the ice conditions don’t allow for much to go on south of the Antarctic Circle. We are the first G Adventures landing since 2007. It was amazing to have that feeling of being somewhere nobody else has ever been. Seemingly as soon as we had got there, it was time to leave. We boarded our zodiac for a cruise around, and our first stop was shortly away where there was a little Chinstrap Penguin and a bunch of Adelies. One of these things is not like the other.
On the cruise we saw a Minke Whale in the distance, a couple of Weddell Seals, and some Crabeater Seals.
Some of the icebergs looked absolutely fantastic. This one was the size of a skyscraper on its side and looked like a Bond villain’s lair.
We got back aboard the boat and had made it down to 66° 50’S. Our original plan was to keep going south to Margarite Bay. At our evening recap and tomorrow’s briefing our expedition leader John explained this plan, and our current issues with it. There are two options to go south. First is to go outside in the open water. There is a large storm bearing down on that area so we would be bashed up pretty good heading down there. The other option is to go between the islands and the mainland and through a chokepoint called the “gullet”, a narrow passage. We had received a report that the gullet was 80% full of sea ice and the HMS Protector (British supply icebreaker) was stuck frozen in the ice. With the heavy weather out to sea and the heavy sea ice along the peninsula it was time to turn back north. It was the furthest south that either Mike or I, or anyone either of us know, has been. We are just hoping the amazing clear skies, and warm Antarctic weather continues to follow us back up the peninsula.
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