After eleven straight days of waking at Oh-Dark-Thirty, endless plane rides, and constant activity on the ship, today I was able to sleep in, spend time curating and organizing some of the thousands of photos I took this trip. We are at sea in the Drake Passage, on the way back to Ushuaia, and then back home via three flights. Ugh. Where’s that transporter room? There are a lot of activities on board today, and I even have a massage scheduled, but there is still time to do what I’m doing right now. Sitting in a comfortable chair in the deck 8 Library, which sits over the bow, looking out at the ocean and the occasional albatross or petrel that flies by. I might drag the camera out later today. You can never have too many photos, but I’m getting close.
I’ll have one more post on the odds and ends excursions, non-penguin related, and might also do a photo-only post of the top, lightly curated images from the trip. I thought I had made a dent in processing all the pics this morning, when I realized that it was only one folder out of 8 on my 4TB SSD drive. I’ll be busy when I get home for a few days.
Darn,there goes another Snowy Petrel. Maybe I will get the camera.
This is one of those rare trips where the bar just keeps getting set higher every day in terms of how you’ve set your expectations for the potential activities of the day. It just gets better and better. I thought the two penguin colony visits would be hard to beat, but I was way wrong.
Yesterday (Monday) was the start of our trip back North, eventually heading back through the Drake Passage to Ushuaia. The NatGeo team was hoping to visit two locations this day, both with penguin colonies, each of which offered potential opportunities for getting onshore, hiking, and maybe kayaking as well. The itinerary each day was always filled with “potentials” and “hopefull” activities. And plenty of alternatives.
I was up early, mostly dressed with the necessary layers of clothing, and headed up for breakfast on the 8th level lounge. The weather was brisk, but clear. As we were eating and conversing, I noticed that the sea was suddenly filled with patches of small chunks of ice (referred to as brash). As we continued on, the brash patches became a continuous sheet, and larger chunks of ice were mixed in (called bergerbits….really). And then the ship started rolling – once they hit patches of ice, they had to pull in the side stabilizers which control rolling. The chunks soon turned into much larger chunks, and soon we were cruising through sizable icebergs. Bigly ones, all shapes and sizes.
As we approached our destination, it became obvious that we would not be hiking, penguin watching, kayaking or even Zodiak cruising. Time for Plan B. We did pass by another cruise ship, the first we’ve seen, which had cleared a small patch around the ship, and had a few Zodiacs out in the water. But there was no possible way to approach the shore.
The Resolution captain helped to design this ship, and is an absolute expert in Antarctic navigation. The Resolution is extremely high-tech – it has four separate engine pods which can turn 360 degrees, plus there are fore and aft thrusters. The ship can literally stop on a dime, turn in any direction and remain in a stationary position using the thrusters. It also has state of the art sounding equipment, and a drone for remote navigation. So, off we went, picking out way through the ice pack, and using the drone to find the best channel out to a rarely visited bay where hopefully, we could get out and enjoy the beautiful day.
The trip through the ice fields was incredible – most of the passengers were glued to the observation decks or lounge windows, watching the strange shaped icebergs as we slowly worked through the maze of ice. There was a constant bump and grind as ship either ran over or pushed aside the ice. It was a beautiful day to be outside as well – bright and sunny, a bit over freezing and not too much wind. Eventually, we made it to this incredible bay, surrounded by glaciers and peaks, with enough clear water for the ship to stay in position and launch the kayaks and zodiacs. The water was perfectly still..but the icebergs were all moving around. More on that in a bit.
I decided, for the second time, to pass on kayaking and just head out on one of the Zodiac boat tours. You see more, go further, and do not have to worry about getting an expensive camera wet. I was lucky for once to get a front seat on the pontoon side, which makes it easier to get unobstructed views for photography – no arms, heads or orange jackets in the way. It was absolutely incredible winding our way though huge icebergs, with all kinds of weird shapes, and eventually making our way to the edge of the glacier. I must have said “Wow” a hundred times. Words just cannot describe some of what we saw.
Navigating through this maze was a challenge since most of the icebergs are floating and moving about with the wind, tides and currents. Channels that we moved through on the way in were blocked sometimes, but there was always an alternative path to follow (although one boat was stuck for a while until the ice moved). After an hour of cruising, our boat driver began picking our way back to the ship – and this is when we started finding wildlife. Penguins of course. Some feeding on krill in the water, and a few lazing around on the icebergs.
We also encountered a crab eater seal (they don’t really eat crabs) lazing away on an ice flow, close to the ship – nice photo op.
Once everyone was back on board, the real fun started for the captain and bridge crew – finding a way out to the main passage. It was slow going the entire way since there was thick brash, and many larger chunks and icebergs the entire way.
It was fun being able to stay on the bridge, watching the pilot in the Captain Kirk seat, working the controls, making minute adjustments to point the ship through narrow spaces between the icebergs. Not a good time to make a mistake. They all gave a sigh of relief when we made it to the main channel. This was a big deal for the captain and the crew – we visited an area that was uncharted, and most likely never visited by a commercial cruise liner.
What a great day. I’m still having a hard time coming up with the right words to describe how incredibly beautiful this place is. Unfortunately, the trip is almost over, but I’ll have a lot of really special memories engrained in my brain. I needed some recent happy memories – definitely got some from this trip
The Traveling Widower 