Sunday, February 23rd, 2014
After last nights's activities this morning came a little sooner than any of us would have liked, but the sun was out so it appeared that our final day would be a nice day. This morning we made our way to Deception Island via the entrance named Neptune's Bellows. Our first stop was at Telefon Bay where we had the opportunity to take a walk along the beach and take a short hike.
This little guy is the reason why we are all here. This is an Antarctic krill and this is the primary food source of many of the wildlife in the area. It is estimated that the total mass of Antarctic krill is higher than any other multi-cellular animal species on the planet. It is crazy to think that these little guys are the reason for all the biodiversity on and around Antarctica and without them, we would have just been looking at snow this past week.
The ship basking in the sunlight.
Making our way up our little hike. The terrain here is a little bit different than anywhere else we stopped, compared more to the lunar surface. This is an area of volcanic action. Apparently near by stations measured numerous small earthquakes and tremors while we were here, but we didn't feel a thing.
Looking away from the water at the top of our hike.
Looking towards the water from around the same place.
A very nice relaxing landing, we eventually made out way back to the ship for lunch. While we ate and relaxed the boat moved....ever so slightly to Whaler's Bay. As the name implies this was an old Norwegian whaling station (1912-1931) followed by a British scientific station (1944-1969) . Many of the buildings and even some of the equipment are still present in the area. It has also been designated a Heritage Site.
Not what you would normally expect to see on a beach in Antarctica.
Exactly what you would expect to see on a beach in Antarctica.
Standing in the doorway of one of the buildings. It is not safe to go inside any of them. Although they remain, they are not restored or really maintained and many areas of the roof have or are on the brink of collapse.
Another one of the old buildings.....and my first attempt at a black and white photo.
Sleeping seal, hanging out with the old whaling equipment.
There is also a cemetery at Whaler's Bay containing 35 burials and a memorial to 10 men lost at sea.
The ship and some left over equipment.
A close up of one of the burials.
That's Jeff with one of the very large storage tanks.
After soaking in enough history Jeff and I hopped into a zodiac and headed across the bay to Neptune's Window to check out a large group of fir seals that were hanging out. We have been told that it is a little late in the year to see this many seals in this location so they figure there must be a good food source or else they would have left. Heidi, one of the biologists on the ship, was really excited to see them all here. She's been on this trip for quite sometime so you know it's a big deal when the staff get excited.
Warning: this video might make you sea sick. But look at all the seals.
This little guy is about to go for a swim......but doesn't seem to be able to get any of his friends to come.
Now that big guy there is not a fir seal. He is in fact an elephant seal. He is surrounded by his harem. Yes elephant seals have harems which can contain up to 50 females....who are obviously much smaller than this giant male.
After checking out the seals for a bit it was time to head back to the beach to take part in one of the most anticipated events of the trip.....the Polar Plunge. Yes it is a polar bear swim....in Antarctica, but you cannot call it a polar bear swim because there are no bears in the southern hemisphere. And yes I can prove it happened. Please see video evidence.
Just a couple of Canadian Polar bears going for a swim. It really was cold but so worth it. Once out of the water they take us back to the ship pretty quick where we got to warm up in the sauna and shower and then with some hot chocolate and Kahlua.
Staring into the sun on our final day in Antarctica.
As I got warmed up and showered and changed I was getting play-by-play of the Men's Olympic Hockey final (of course between Canada and Sweden). Many of the G-Adventures staff are Canadian and they were very anxious to hear the result. Mom and Heather were keeping me updated via What's App so I was able to break the good news to the staff. The news quickly spread via the hand held radios all the staff have so by the time everyone got back to the boat there was a bit of a celebration.
Sitting in our afternoon debrief the ship began to make it's way out of Deception Island and headed back into the Drake Passage. The question became.....what Drake would await us. We were all prepared for the worse. A storm had hit the Drake from the North and had stopped most ships from making the attempt. One ship that did ended up severely damaged and had to hobble back to Ushuaia. For us it was obvious pretty quick that it was going to be much rougher than on the way down but were not sure if we would hit the remains of that same storm at some point. I ended up getting very sick on this night (threw up most of my dinner but went back and ate more because that's what they say to do). I ended up getting one of those patches to hopefully help out.
That night a bunch of us got together in the Polar Bear lounge to play some poker. We most certainly were feeling the movement of the boat. In fact on one pretty violent pitch (Jeff's phone measured it at about 19 degrees), pretty much everything went flying. All the bottles in the bar. Everything on the table and even the one chair that was not tied down, that our friend Shuri was sitting in....slid across the floor about 2 metres......with him sitting in it. Got to see first hand why all the tables and chairs are chained to the floor.
Eventually we headed to our beds. The seasickness patch was making me drowsy so I fell asleep quickly. On the Drake scale they said we were probably sitting at about a 6 or 7 out of 10. More than a few passengers were excited for it. I could have gone without it. The night was a little rough but let's just say it's a good thing the top bunks have rails on them because that's the only reason I stayed nicely in my bed.
Still one more day in the Drake left......let's see what tomorrow will present us with.
Julie
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