Our cabin is looking and feeling quite lived in.
Saturday, December 3--
at Gold Harbor we landed one half the group while the other half--in which we
were--took a zodiac cruise and then switched places. We started landing at 7:00
so had only continental breakfast--not much different from the regular
breakfast. The zodiac
Click on the two images above to see the elephant seals.
cruise was very interesting. Dave was our driver, and we came very close to the animals we were viewing. We went into an area which he called a lagoon where we could see on the rocks where the glacier came many years ago and where the mountains had folded in formation. It was also interesting to see how one area on the right and one on the left lifted up from the middle area. We saw a small iceberg that looked very much like a duck. We were very lucky because as I was looking at the glacier at the top of the mountain I saw it begin to calve. We were all able to watch the ice fall down the mountain, but no one was quick enough to film it. When it hit the rocks it s
plattered against them. The animals when we landed were the best yet! There were many male elephant seals with some females and young ones. The breeding season was mostly finished and these males just slept on the beach or sometimes in the tussock grass with little notice of us. There were a few fur seals. We watched the elephant seals for a little longer and then we were able to walk up a relatively short path through the tussock grass to the nest of an albatross--hard waking with seals every once and a while that we had to dodge. I am somewhat unhappy that it is so hard for me on these walks. It's a good thing we are doing this now and not waiting! Tony stood by the nest while we walked up one at a time to look at the bird sitting there. After the walk we took a Zodiac back to the ship. We then had a brunch on the ship and moved to Cooper Bay, where we could either scramble up a 40 m slope or take a zodiac cruise.
That was the plan! What actually happened was that when we reached Gold Harbor the wind was 45 knots and it was decided that it was too dangerous to try to land so we travelled on to the Fjord. Drygalski Fjord was beautiful even with the cloudy conditions that we had. The captain sailed the Sea Spirit to less than a kilometer from the glacier at the end of the fjord. It came all the way down to the sea and was quite a sight. I don't think that too many people were very upset about missing the landing at Gold Harbor although we missed seeing a colony of macaroni penguins and one of chinstrap penguins. After the fjord we started on the trip to Antarctica. We passed the Cape of Disappointment, named because some thought it was Antarctica and it wasn't. We saw this mountain formation that to me looked like two ducks kissing. Quite a few people missed supper or, as was the case with two men at our table, left during the meal because of feelings unwell.
Sunday, December 4--This was a day at sea. Breakfast was come in your pajamas-- which we didn't do, but many people did. A scavenger hunt questionnaire was distributed for a contest involving the correct answers, a limerick, and costumes in the evening. There were some imaginative costumes-- both good and bad. Luke Saffigna talked about "Fitting the jigsaw puzzle together: Gondwanaland" and Pat Lewis about "Whales of the Southern Ocean Part 2: Toothy Critters".
Monday, December 5--we were supposed to land at Monroe Island in the South Orkney Islands, but during the night the captain saw an "impenetrable" obstacle of ice so we headed north and will head toward Elephant Island instead. That seems to mea
n another day at sea. We had a very interesting conversation at breakfast about living in Jeruselem with Erika and Albert. I ate mussels for supper and was sick later in the night. I don't think that mussels and I really agree!
Tuesday, December 6--In the afternoon, Elephant Island came in sight. It was relatively foggy and a little drizzly-- a day on which we would have stayed inside at home--but most of us loaded into the Zodiacs for a cruise to see Point Wild, which is where the Endurance crew stayed while Shackleton and five others went off to get help. There's a memorial bust here of Captain Villalon of the Yelcho, the ship that rescued the men after about four months. The area on which they waited is a very small, low, rocky area. I can't imagine 22 men living here for that long in winter weather! There was an accident disembarking on the Zodiacs. We were disembarking from one of the side gangways when a gear failure caused the bottom part of the gangways to fall. Two of the seamen went at least somewhat put into the water. They apparently weren't hurt, but they've been working on fixing it for over a day now. I missed the lectures today because I did a lot of sleeping after being sick las night. Tom had rather sleep anyway! We were late getting everyone back on board so we had supper before the debriefing. There was another scavenger hunt game, but we didn't take part at all this time.
Wednesday, December 7--We spent the night and the morning sailing toward the Antarctic Peninsula. We're going through "Iceberg Alley" and have already seen some great tabular icebergs--flat, rectangular looking, but there were even bigger icebergs here--and not all tabular. We tried to land at a place called Brown's Bluff, but the winds were too high--up to 83 knots the last we heard--and the captain ended up backing up and heading somewhere else. They called the wind "katabatic" which I think is an unpredictable wind that comes down from the Antarctic mountains. Tom tried on his wet suit just in case.
