It was an early start today, with a 6am Good Morning, Good Morning wake up call from Jamie to let us all know that we were about to start going through the Lemaire channel along the Danco Coast transiting from north to south. He promised that it would be a very scenic route – and it didn’t disappoint. The channel is approximately 6 miles long and only about 1/3rd mile wide at its narrowest point, so it takes about 45 mins to transit through it. I got a few pictures from our cabin’s balcony and then I trotted along to the bridge to take some more photos. Again, pictures don’t do the landscape justice, but the reflections of the massive icebergs and mountains in the smooth, calm water were breathtakingly beautiful.
Our activity this morning was an expedition to Port Charcot, Booth Island. It is named after a renowned French explorer who first visited Antarctica from 1903-1905 – this site is where his expedition worked and over-wintered. In addition to its historical significance, it is also one of the few landing sites on the peninsula where all three species of brushtail penguin (Adelie, chinstrap and gentoo) might be seen together. It was a short zodiac ride out to the landing site, followed by a scenic 1km hike up a hill to see an old message cairn (ie big pile of rocks). This cairn was used prior to the Swedish expedition (in 1901-1903) as a way of letting people know where you’d been and where you were going in case of a last resort/rescue party. To do this, they would write their message onto a slip of paper, slide it into a glass bottle and then bury it inside the cairn to protect it from the elements. You would then hope that your rescuers would find the message and it would be enough detail for them to come and find you! Clearly, not the most expeditious way of getting in touch, but this was before the invention of modern communications, so it was presumably better than nothing. After the Swedish expedition of 1920-1923 and the start of commercial whaling, there were many more ships and people about, so it wasn’t needed anymore. The views of the bay and surrounding mountains and icebergs were, again, spectacular – and even though it was a bit colder, the skies were still clear so we had amazing views. And, of course, there were a ton of derpy penguins bopping about – its almost impossible to get bored of them as they are so entertaining to watch. We also spotted (at a distance) a big fat elephant seal chilling out on the ice.
We got back to the boat around 11.30am, just in time for lunch, and I managed to pick up another camera as Fiona opened the photo locker back up. Alas, this camera did not have quite such a large telephoto lens, but its better than nothing so we’ll see what we can do with it. This trip has certainly re-ignited my interest in photography, so maybe I’ll ask Santa to see if he can slip me an Olympus OM-1 system with 100-400mm lens into my stocking….
Our second expedition this afternoon was at a different location called Petermann Island. This also was a site of historical interest as it was the overwintering site for the second Charcot expedition in 1908-1910 (Charcot got around). There was also an Argentine refuge hut that is preserved, but no longer used. The landing point was on solid bedrock in a small bay called Port Circumcision, named by Charcot for the holy day when they first sighted the spot.
We had a couple of different options for how to spend our time in Petermann Island. We could either do a landing and a short hike to see some more penguins or we could opt to do a longer Zodiac cruise. We decided on the longer Zodiac, partly because we’d already done the longer hike in the morning, but mainly because there were better opportunities for spotting wildlife. Obviously there are zero guarantees you’ll see anything (which was why Jamie the expedition leader was always non-committal when you asked him which option you should choose) but we were in luck! As well as some more fabulous icebergs, the highlight of our zodiac cruise was another encounter with a Weddell seal – a little baby one who seemed both unimpressed and uninterested in the little cluster of Zodiac boats clicking away with phones and cameras!
As we explored around Petermann Island, we also saw a yacht parked up! It seemed a little incongruous to see such a little boat all the way out here in Antarctica, but apparently Kings of the Universe and other assorted billionaires and adventure seekers can charter a yacht from Ushuaia, sail it down here and then go cross country skiing. I can’t even imagine doing the Drakes passage crossing in anything less than a state-of-the art ocean-going, Xbow stabilized 408ft long passenger ship, let alone a 40ft yacht. That would require some serious cohones and even stronger stomachs!
We were all very happy after our zodiac cruise that we’d gotten to see a seal properly (instead of from a far far distance) and so we didn’t get back to the boat until almost 5pm. We met back in the Ice Lounge at 6pm for a quick recap of the day and to go through the plans for tomorrow, then headed to the restaurant for dinner. After dinner, the evening turned into a bit of a party evening as we ended up going back to the Ice Lounge for a couple of nightcaps, but then got sucked into playing a game of Codenames with some of the other passengers upstairs in the library. As you can tell, I was well into it! Matt and I finished with banging out a couple of tunes on the piano in the library and leading a bit of a sing song (we’d been misinformed before the trip and told there wasn’t a piano onboard otherwise we’d have actually prepared something!). We finally left everyone to it (they were still playing Codenames) and headed off to bed at 12.30am – another fun and memorable day!!
