12th January
Danger Islands
Approaching the Antarctic Peninsular from Elephant Island, we dipped into the Eastern side of the Peninsula. The morning saw us anchor in the Danger Islands at Heroina Island, a bold rock island sticking rudely out of the sea.
The Weddell Sea is a vast bay gouging into the Antarctic continent, with the huge Larsen and Ronne ice shelves. This is where Shackleton’s ship, Endeavour, was crushed to pieces.
The western side of the sea is defined by the peninsular, and is riddled with raw rock, icy islands and icebergs. The sea is laced with Phytoplankton, nourishing krill, which provides the base food for all life in the Antarctic, including penguins, whales and seals.
A landing was not permitted, as every accessible stretch of the shoreline is filled with penguins in vast colonies, with about 300,000 breeding pairs.
Approaching the shore, the cacophony (and smell!) of the penguins was nearly overpowering. Like a crowded city, thousands upon thousands of penguins occupied the beach and land further up. Nests with chicks were higher up, so a long way for their mums and dads to travel to hunt for food.
Surprisingly, large numbers of penguins climbed even higher – like mountaineers, to the highest points of the island.
There were plenty of smallish icebergs (perhaps 100-150 m2), just off the shore, where penguins hang about before going out hunting for food, and before returning to their nests, higher up the shore.
It was a delight observing the penguins jumping out of the water onto the pitching iceberg side and hopping and diving back into the sea again.
Our Zodiac, piloted by Hannah,our Expedition Leader, was in fits of laughter witnessing pure comedy.
One iceberg was unusual, with a large Leopard Seal languishing on the ice. Being predators, Leopard Seals tend to eat penguins! Despite this, a group of penguins shared the iceberg with the lazing seal, though at a respectful distance. It was hilarious observing penguins shooting out of the water, landing on the ice, and immediately jumping back into the water, when noticing the seal.
We navigated slowly around the island, giving those passengers interested in birds an opportunity to show off their vast knowledge of birds. Not something high on our appreciation list…
By the time we made it back to Seaventure, we were cold, and grateful to receive hot towels to warm numbing fingers.
Paulet Island
The afternoon found us at Paulet Island, famous as the winter home to Captain Carl Larsen’s crew after their Swedish Expedition Nordenskjöld ship was crushed in the winter ice and sank. It was surrounded by a wide expanse of water, littered with huge icebergs, broken off ice tables, some at surreal, crazy angles.
Not long out on our zodiac cruise, we enjoyed a wonderful display of whale play. A group of, what must be more than fifteen whales, entertained us for more than five minutes, splashing around and displaying their flukes and flippers.
A group of kayakers happened to be really close to them, which must have been awesome and scary at the same time.
Our Zodiac gently approached a large, high iceberg, shaped like a steep, triangular sail. Hundreds of penguins populated the lower part of the iceberg, but many decided on ice-mountaineering, tackling sheer ice cliffs to reach the top of the berg.
Our ‘buddy’ zodiac had a problem with its motor, probably contaminated fuel, which has been troubling some zodiacs during our voyage. We linked our zodiac to theirs, towing them along for a while, giving their motor a rest, before it happily restarted.
Before the two zodiacs parted, we witnessed a humpback whale breaking the surface shortly ahead of us, cheering the passengers of both zodiacs.
We were to have made a very short landing, but there was a queue of zodiacs ahead of us, and most of us decided to abandon the landing and head back to the ship because we were getting very cold. Two hardy souls wanted to do the landing, so we performed a zodiac to zodiac transfer, mid-ocean.
