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| Beanie berg - stay calm!! |
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| Interesting shape with a hole in the middle |
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| They really are this blue |
25 Dec 24: Merry Christmas from the South Georgia
Islands
(Randy) Woke up to a rather cool,
cloudy, and snowy morning. The
agenda was for zodiacs only, the swells were too high for the kayaks. No landings however. The body called for sleeping in: Body 1 – Zodiac 0.
So in lieu of a zodiac cruise, we'll tell you about the ship Christmas door decoration contest. It was pretty fun with lots of folks getting into the spirit. It was clear some folks knew about it ahead of time as they were well prepared with ribbons, paper, etc. The ship had a table set up with some artsy fartsy supplies, none of which had any remote possibility of being crafted into anything except recycle by our gifted hands. Here's a couple pics of our neighbors. BTW, none of them won!
The afternoon shore trip to Grytviken
(grit’vi ken) was really good. This is
home to one of the few year round inhabited sites. It has a British Polar Exploration and Research Station, a
South Georgia Wildlife & Heritage nonprofit, and is best known for the
burial site of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the famous Irish explorer. Shackleton is well known for leading an expedition to the South Pole (they were unsuccessful) and his rescue of the crew members from the ship Endurance that sank in Antarctic waters. I'll let Beanie expand on that since she has read every book about Shackleton’s expeditions. That may be a slight exaggeration. But you know Beanie was excited for this shore excursion! Shackleton is a very popular figure with the crew and passenger population too.
The entire bay is hard to capture in a single picture, so here are three pictures.
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View Of Grytviken From The Ship
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| The right side of the bay is research living quarters and offices |
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| On the left side of the bay is the Whalers Cemetery |
The weather cleared and
turned beautiful, sunny, 45-50 and little to no wind – the best of the
expedition thus far - so we are off to shore!
The site is home to a British
Polar Research Team and a Museum. They have a polar research vessel
and fixed site installation adjacent to Grytviken and they are there year round.
The research center is open year round. I can't imagine how brutal the winters must be here. The staff goes from around 25 to 8, depending on the time of year - talk about dedication. The Museum is only open in the summer, unfortunately we didn't go inside the main part of the museum, just ran out of time, but we were briefed by the staff and they were very energetic and well informed. Here's a picture of the museum.
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| Beanie in front of the Museum |
There is a dock here but no room for our ship so we landed with zodiacs. We started our exploration with a walk about. The shore is a testimony to the whaling and sealing industry with rusted out whaling ships, huge whale oil storage bins, whale processing equipment and spare parts littered on the shore and a storage facility. Once again you notice the irony of seals making their home at the very site where they were processed for their oil.
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| Old, rusted out whaling vessels |
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| The Petrel - A Whaling Ship |
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| Note the Harpoon gun on the bow |
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| Whale oil processing and separation tanks |
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| Power tow winches used these huge chains to tow the whales onto shore for processing |
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Our first stop was a small museum building to the left of the main museum. It featured a replica of the lifeboat that Shackleton used to sail from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Not very big especially when considering the seas they had to navigate and that there were six men on board. It's a miracle everyone made it home. . . . eventually.
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| Imagine being on this for 17 days in Antarctic seas? |
This gives you some scale of just how big an albatross can get. As you know, Beanie has a very respectable wingspan of her own!! Just saying.
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| Look at me! Look at me! I'm a bird!! |
Next stop - the local Post Office and gift shop. This was a really quaint little place with tee shirts, cards, and other touristy doodads. We sent out, well Beanie did, a couple post cards. We asked how long it would be before they were delivered and the young lady behind the desk, "Oh, it will be a couple of . . . . months!" Too funny, but the cards make there way to the US via the UK.
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| The local Post Office and Gift Shop - Talk about one stop shopping! |
Seals are the dominant inhabitants of the island accompanied by a few penguins and seabirds. They have zero fear of humans and pretty much go on about their business, which is primarily sleeping, farting, and maintaining their territorial claims from other seals. These are primarily fur seals and the male will have as many females in his harem that he can successfully defend. Real fights are pretty rare with most challenges being young males checking their testosterone levels. The first video is pretty sweet with a young pup trying to mooch another meal. Weening is just around the corner!!
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| Male with a couple babes - note the wound on his lower chest |
Here's a male watching over his harem. The light fur seals are females and the dark fur seals are pups. He keeps an active watch out, moving about to make sure everything is under control. Make sure you have the volume up as there's a bit of seal chatting going on. Also, keep an eye out for the king penguin that apparently identifies as a fur seal.
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| We barely saw these guys dug into the tussock grass. |
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| Just catching a few rays on a long summer day |
Another site that I found interesting was the Main Store that stored spare parts and supplies. It was pretty extensive and some equipment was more modern than I would have thought. Looking back it's hard to believe it was only a little over 60 years ago that whaling was at its peak. The warehouse is pretty much the way it was was when the site was abandoned as a whale processing center in the early 60s.
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| Translation: Please don't be the stupid tourist that messes shit up!! |
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| I don't think of GE radar transceivers in the same era as whale hunting. |
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| On the left various harpoon heads and on the right harpoon shafts. |
From here we made our way to the small whalers cemetery where Shackleton is buried. It's on a very pretty part of the island, animals everywhere, the grass is green, and a freshwater stream flows down from the snow topped mountains. In the picture below you can see the white fence of the cemetery on the upper left.
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| Probably the greenest grass we saw on the trip - you can see seals all the way up the hill |
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| Small seal pup nursery in the grasses |
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| Just barely made it out of the water before racking out. |
This guy was just trying to figure out the best direction. Where's mom when you really need her??
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| Penguins cooling off where the mountain stream enters the sea |
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| Look at those eyes! I mean how could I pass up that "come hither" look?? |
We visited the cemetery (Beanie will talk about that) and by now it was getting towards the end of the shore excursion and we had one more stop before heading back to the ship. Remember, it is Christmas day so some of us are meeting at the church to sing some Christmas carols and have a little Christmas celebration. I'm not saying it's been a while since I been to church on Christmas, but I am going to look over my shoulder on the way in . . . . just saying, those lightning bolts hurt!
The church is a very quaint little place. The docent (actually one of the staff) that briefed us upon arrival said that during the years of whaling it was the least used building in the complex. It appears when given a choice, the whalers would use their Sundays as an opportunity to earn more money, play soccer, or perhaps imbibe in a few spirits versus attending services.
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| The Church - the least used building at the site. |
One of the more painful videos of the trip. The horrible, droning, no-rhythm, monotone voice you hear murdering one of the most classic Christmas Carols belongs to me. You may want to listen to this on mute! But at least you get a nice view of the interior of the church.
(Kathy) Yet another incredible day. Randy did such a thorough job of describing our time on Grytviken that I'll keep this short. I wish we'd had more time to explore this old whaling station and research center. It is a beautiful bay and the hills surrounding the station were very green this time of year. There were seals lounging in the grass all through the hills. It was very interesting to see the buildings where the whalers lived and the equipment needed for processing the whales. I wish we could've gone into the old barracks but the doors were locked. We looked in the windows though and could see some of the old furniture. I loved seeing all the history in the old buildings and equipment. At the same time it was nice to see how the birds, seals and penguins had taken over the beach and hills again. Here are a few more pictures of the now derelict whaling station.
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| Our landing site. And the welcome committee of one. |
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| Same welcome committee. He was not happy with us and we all kept our distance. |
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| The church and the rusted out whaling equipment |
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| The whalers barracks |
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| The outdoor kitchen for the barracks |
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| Close-up of the kitchen |
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| This was used for clothes washing - the wringer |
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| Some other storage tanks where the oils were heated and separated |
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| Can you imagine how many whales it took to require this amount of whale oil storage?? |
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| Yet more equipment - not sure what the tower provides, but perhaps some type of pump. |
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| Quite the contrast between an outdated industry and the beautiful Quark polar ship. |
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There were whale bones in all the streams and along the shore
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| It was nice to spend some time in this beautiful old church on Christmas day |
After we explored the whaling station we walked up into the hills to the cemetery. It felt great to stand beside the graves of Ernest Shackleton and Frank Wild, his second in command, and give a toast in their honor. What an incredible endeavor. I think we may have already included information of Shackleton's connection with Grytviken but here's a very short version: It was during the Imperial Trans-Atlantic Expedition that Shackleton's ship the Endurance sank, thus leading to Shackleton's heroic rescue of all of his crew which involved an 800 mile voyage (with 5 crew members) in one of the Endurance lifeboats to South Georgia and then a 36 hour trek over the mountains to Grytviken. Below is a bit long but excellent summation of his life and expeditions, particularly The Imperial Trans-Atlantic Expedition, 1914-1917. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton
I thought you might enjoy a well known paraphrase of a statement made by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who served with Shackleton on the Terra Nova Expedition: "Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."
There are many excellent books about the Imperial Trans-Atlantic Expedition but my favorite is the book entitled South, Ernest Shackleton's account of the expedition. It has lots of original photographs and illustrations of the expedition. This is the book that got me hooked on reading about polar expeditions.
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| Heading up to the whalers cemetery |
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| View out to the bay |
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| The Ultramarine in the background - any thoughts on this thong personal floatation devices? |
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| View back to the old whaling station |
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A toast of fine Jameson Irish Whiskey to Sir Ernest Shackleton
 | . . . . and his right hand man.
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| The headstone of one of the many whalers who died on this island |
26 Dec 25: More South Georgia - Can't Get Enough!
(Randy) Woke up to a cloudy day,
temps around 32̊ and we're on schedule for a morning Zodiac
tour of Cooper Island, located at the southeast end of South Georgia. Yet another amazing area. The seas were mild but choppy and we were able to
duck into the smallest coves and inlets around the island. Beanie thought this was one of the prettiest areas of South Georgia. I'll let her tell you about it.
(Kathy) Cooper island is very special. We had my favorite Quark crew member Marla, a marine biologist, as our guide and zodiac driver for the 2 hour cruise. Marla told us she has been to Antarctica 25 times and this is the first time she has been to Cooper Island because there are usually very rough seas here. You could tell she was pretty excited. Even Ryan, the team leader, took a zodiac out to see it. The island has many small coves to explore. Despite it being a very cold and overcast day, it was one of my favorite zodiac cruises. The tide was out, exposing the bottoms of the interesting black rock formations in the water. You could see the yellow, orange and green lichen growing on the rocks as well as the thick kelp attached to the walls of the rocks. It made you realize how much more life was going on here than you realized. All the small beach areas were very busy with the comings and goings of seals and penguins - macaronis, kings, gentoos, adelies and chinstraps oh my! It's unusual to see so many penguin species all together. Penguins and seals surrounded the zodiac. The hills were very green with lots of tussock grass and craggy black rocks. It was stunning. The videos and pictures don't do it justice. I'm blaming it on being an overcast day and the fact the zodiac was moving so much. It couldn't have been our photographic skills!!
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| Penguin Highway - hard to think of penguins as such good climbers! |
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| Snowy Sheathbills - more about these chicken like birds later. I really like them. |
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| The gold color on the exposed rocks is lichen |
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| Macaroni penguins and gold colored lichen - hey, it matches their head feathers! |
(still Kathy) As the day progressed it got colder and started to rain. But the seas were calm enough for an afternoon split landing/zodiac cruise at Gold Harbour. I decided to take the afternoon off and stay on the ship. I enjoyed the solitude, getting my steps in on Deck 5 and watching 6 curious Snowy Sheathbills and their antics on the forward deck. They are very intelligent and curious birds. Not very pretty, not very good flyers and they walk like a chicken moving their heads backwards and forwards. But they sure are fun to watch. Later, after Randy got back from Gold Harbour and looking at his videos and pictures, I could see it was another exciting split landing and that I missed some of the best elephant seal sightings. Rats. But it did look cold and very wet and I'm glad I missed seeing some sobering skua and penguin interaction. You'll see.
(Randy) After lunch, we had a “split
crew” outing at Gold Harbour, our last stop for South Georgia, before we head
towards the Antarctic Peninsula. Split
crew means they split the guests into two groups, in this case two groups of
about 85 people. Regulation restricts
the number of people that can go to shore at any given time to 100, so half the folks
board Zodiacs and cruise around the shore lines. This provides an opportunity to cover a lot
more shoreline and view things from a different perspective. Both groups normally have 1 ½ to 2 hours for
each segment after which the two are reversed and the shore party does the
Zodiac trip and the Zodiac trip goes ashore. It
really works out well.
A unique feature of Gold Harbour is the Bertrab Glacier, https://wikishire.co.uk/wiki/Bertrab_Glacier
. It’s known as a “hanging” glacier which
means it actually hangs at the edge of the mountain and in some cases runs down
the mountain side to the shore or sea. The
harbor (please excuse my American version) was magnificent! Tall, sheer cliffs, the glacier overlooking
the bay, a small, partially frozen waterfall and a huge assortment of king penguins and to a lesser extent gentoo penguins, a few fur seals and a
significant population of Elephant seals. Beanie sat this one out. It
appears that the luster of penguins subsides after the first couple hundred
thousand – who knew!
The zodiac was very enjoyable
though I was a bit disappointed we couldn't get closer to some of the areas
closest to the waterfall and glacier.
Because it wasn't windy and the seas forgiving we were able to
get in and out of many areas that we normally could not access. Here’s a few pictures and videos.
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It's so much larger than it appears in this pic. Note the rocks in the water - No Bueno!!
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We came across large gatherings of Elephant seats. Most of the time they were just hanging around, steam coming off the bodies - these summer time highs above freezing can be hard on a seal and they get a little testy!
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| Sweltering |
I think on a quick look it would be easy to mistake these guys for ducks when they are swimming. It just looks like they are having a really good time diving around. More than likely they are adolescents just spreading their flippers and getting used to being penguins. Good plan, summer is short!
We finished up and headed on to the shore
portion.
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| Bertrab Glacier in the background |
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| The beach and Bertrab Glacier |
Almost immediately after going
ashore I encountered a group of adolescent elephant seals. They are mostly 7-9 years old, too young to
get a girl, but young enough to exhibit typical male teenage behavior. Lots of mock battles, testing their testes,
and lots of noise. These guys were
particularly interesting as when it started to rain the steam began to emanate off them.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember this is the middle of summer here and
it’s probably a wee warm for the locals.
Here’s a little video to show the steam and behaviors. Lot's of vocalization.
I headed down the beach to see
what else was happening. There were mostly king penguins along the way but I
always find it amusing when other breeds kind of weasel there way in under the
radar. In this case it was the gentoo penguins.
They are much smaller than kings, have no color markings other than black and white
except pink feet.
I ran across a few other groups of
adolescent elephant seals all trying to put on some level of display on how
tough they are as well as some birds. I
was near the end of my walk when I came across a molting king penguin that was looking a
little shaky. When they go through their annual molt during this time of year it can be quite stressful for them. He was laying on his
stomach, flippers (wings?) outstretched, and slightly shaking. I grabbed a couple of pics just because he
appeared to be a one off.
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| The guy just didn't look right. |
I move on and saw a king penguin
that looked like she was sitting on her egg.
December is a little late in the year for kings to be hatching chicks, so I thought
that was unusual and I watched her for a while.
Sure enough, after about 10 minutes she did a little stretch, lifted her
belly a bit, and there was an egg. I
have to guess this chick would hatch very soon. Here’s a pic of her with her egg.
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| The little "beer belly" bump at the bottom covers the egg |
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| Little sneak peak at the egg as she adjusts it on her feet |
While I was watching her a large
South Polar Skua (skoo a’) came around.
This is a large, omnivore bird that will eat virtually anything, but
when around breeding grounds, often feeds on the eggs and young of penguins or carrion. They often walk with their wings spread to
make it look larger with the intent of scaring the king penguins away
from their eggs to get a meal. Here’s a
short video of how that looked and just how large this bird is and demonstrates
their behavior.
The Skua did his strut but momma
penguin wasn’t buying. About 10 seconds
after the Skua passed by, I hear a big ruckus behind me. I turn to see the Skua has attacked the shaky penguin I had passed moments before. The penguin probably weighed about 25 lbs and the
Skua 5 lbs, but the Skua was aggressive and quickly grabbed the upper
hand. I watched the battle go on for a
few minutes and it was pretty clear it wasn’t going to turn out well for the
penguin. Two other scavenger birds I
couldn’t identify joined the fray and that pretty much told the story. I watched for a few more minutes and just
walked away. It was interesting in that
there were hundreds of penguins and other seals in the area, but they just kind
of watched the whole thing unfold. Rather than show the entire gory "wild kingdom" video, here’s a couple excerpts.
I headed back to the drop off
point and had a quick Zodiac ride back to the ship. Later that day I talked to several Quark people about the skua attacking the penguin and showed them the video. They all agreed the penguin was not well, otherwise the skua would never have been able to take it, wouldn't have even tried. Unfortunately it probably took some time for the skua to kill it. Nature. . . .
Back on board a great day came to an end with a couple of whale viewings off the side of the ship. If you look closely you'll see a dolphin in the lower left portion of the video AND, as a special treat, look real close and you'll notice a white/pinkish pool behind the whale - yep, a rare whale poop!! Eating krill means pink poop. Hold the applause.
After the wildlife viewing we were greeted with an incredible sunset. Not the usual bright, vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds, but more of an Ansel Adams shot of the channel, mountains and icebergs.
(Kathy) What an incredible 4 days in South Georgia. No doubt about it, South Georgia has earned it's reputation as the Serengeti of the Southern Ocean. As the sun started going down, we turned toward the open sea and Antarctica. But the Captain wasn't quite done yet. He steered us through a beautiful channel jammed with icebergs of all shapes and sizes. As the sun got lower and lower it lit up the water and icebergs with a golden glow. I think this is where my camera shutter finally conked out and started sticking!! Wow, just wow.............I've obviously exceeded my vocabulary of superlatives
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| Yes, we are as close to these icebergs as it looks |
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| Tubular iceberg - or as we call it, table top iceberg |
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| Tubular iceberg |
27 Dec 24: Sea Day – Off to Antarctica!
(Randy) After a fond farewell to South
Georgia, we’re once again heading South.
The seas are quite good, but foggy with limited visibility. Numerous whale sightings, but very few of
quality.
Ugh, bad news. We just passed iceberg A23a, the world’s
largest iceberg, but the weather is too socked in for us to see it. The captain is going to try and reroute us in an
effort to gain a peek!!
We had a nice lunch at the Bistro. I do have one, very minor, kinda
petty, maybe chickenshit complaint. They
do not know how to pour a beer! Maybe
it’s the European influence! Tell me I
am wrong!
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| I want to say too much head . . . but we all know where that will lead! |
Yea!! Just got an announcement from Ryan from the bridge that iceberg A23a is just off the starboard side. Everyone is running outside to take a
peek. Unfortunately the visibility will
not provide the opportunity to see it in all its grandeur, but it’s still
pretty evident it is one large ice cube.
Here’s our lame efforts with a couple pics and a video. The video is a bit sketchy, but the audio tells the story of the high winds. You might wish to
pump up the volume a bit.
(Kathy) When you run into crew members on the deck taking the same pictures as you, you know you're in for a treat. Marla was on deck 5 the same time as we were to see A23a. She very nicely offered to take our picture with it and we briefly (it was very cold and windy out there!) talked about the giant berg. A23a is currently the largest iceberg in the world and is roughly the same size as Rhode Island. During their travels, these giant bergs often become grounded by tall ocean mountains and they can remain grounded for many years. Unfortunately A23a is heading towards South Georgia and if it grounds near the island it may block penguins from reaching their feeding and breeding grounds there. We were close enough to it to see the dramatic archways carved into the sides by wave action. Here's some more information you may find interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A23a . Thanks Terry for asking me if we would see it. I'm not sure I was aware it was in that part of the ocean until you ask me. Of course, I then got my hopes up and they could've been dashed! But they weren't, thanks to our ever resourceful Captain.
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| We couldn't see the beginning or the end. Can you guess what kind of iceberg it is? Right- tubular. |
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| This baby is approximately 120 ft tall (above the water) and 800 ft below the water |
Thought we would share this slide from this evenings recap. It shows the travel we've done in the South Georgia Islands. Though at first glance one might think the Captain had a little too much to drink, what it really captures is the effort the Captain and Expedition Team have put forth to get us on as many Zodiac and Shore excursions as possible. Notice all the reroutes, backups, etc. Nice job and kind of funny at the same time.
And of course we would be remiss, especially to those of you that were fortunate enough to receive dozens of copies of our ill fated email featuring Beanie and I and a hundred thousand or so of our closest penguin friends, if we didn't include a penguin tally. Here is a summary of the penguin population for the South Georgia Islands. I know it makes you wish you were here!
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| Note the numbers are in mating pairs. Of the 3,000,000 penguins worldwide we saw 1,340,000!!! |
How about a few miscellaneous things you may or may not find interesting? Let's start with a time elapsed video of a zodiac returning to the ship. The gentleman that disembarks first is David. He was the oldest person on board in his early 90s - Korean War era vet. I thought he might have a few issues, but he chose his activities well and we saw him everywhere. Really impressive and a very nice gentleman.
Another part of the expedition that we found interesting was the behind the scenes work of the crew. Multiple times at every stop they load and unload dozens of kayaks and Zodiacs and it all seems so flawless. In reality, every time anything goes off the ship it is checked for anything that might “contaminate” where it’s going. This means power washing every Zodiac and kayak when it returns to the ship. It’s then hoisted to the upper deck for storage until needed. It’s a pretty impressive process as shown in the time elapsed video below.
There's another big process for passengers and crew when getting onto the zodiacs to go to shore and returning from shore. Everyone goes through a similar process. All outer gear is inspected for what we called in the Air Force, FOD. FOD is Foreign Object Damage and on the flight line it is basically anything that could get ingested into a jet engine or any other part of an aircraft and cause damage. On this ship it is anything, and I mean anything that could support some level of invasive species. Boots are inspected and anything like a grain of sand stuck into a tread or logo, a piece of grass, or a smear of guano. When we return to the ship from shore we use the automatic boot washing machines to clean our boots, then inspect them for any additional contaminates that may need to be removed by hand or with tools, and finally step into pans of disinfectant to complete the cleaning.
The gentleman on the left is Jon, one of the helo pilots and the one who gave a briefing about cycling across Lake Baikal in Siberia - more to follow. We spoke often and he's a really good guy.
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| Boot washing stations |
(Kathy) We failed to get a video of actually using the boot cleaning stations (how exciting would that have been?!) however, to compensate, here's a video of Randy enjoying the golf outing I promised him for this trip.
(RC) I think this counts for golfing in Antarctica! Check it off the list!! And no, I didn't make the putt!!
That's all for now. We'll get it going on the next, and probably final edition of this trip. Try to keep the anticipation down!! Cheers.
