Veron’s Adventures

The trip continues as we sail further south. Just before we’re about to enter the famous and feared Lemaire Channel, the 2nd captain allows me to take a quick look at the bow where the captains are navigating the ship around all the icebergs that are well hidden in the Antarctic waters.

The blue line is the course the ship is going to sail and all the yellow dots are icebergs! Also, it may be hard to see but the radar shows 64.19 degrees south!

All the hard navigational work has definitely been worth it since Lemaire channel was absolutely stunning…

 

The next landing was one a lot of people had been waiting for, Neko harbour. Or better; the first stop of this expedition on the Antarctic mainland, the 7th continent. No more small islands close to the Antarctic peninsula but the mysterious continent itself.

For this reason all kayakers decided to skip kayaking for the afternoon to spend all the time on the continent

First steps on the 7th continent. It was one of the few days that was a bit colder with about -5 celsius and some wind.

Since we were around early in the mating season there was a lot of penguin love to be seen…

After Neko Harbour we made a zodiac landing at Port Lockroy, a former research station that recently added a souvenir shop. Some of us, including me, decided to ban that part of the trip. We didnt come to the most remote place on earth to buy a penguin keycord after all…

The next day we stopped in the bay of Petermann Island. A beautiful and humongous space that was great for kayaking. After about an hour of peddling one of the group spotted a totally blue iceberg with his binoculars about 5km away. Since they’re very uncommon, the guide ”walkie talkied” a Zodiac driver so we could go and take a closer look to the thing…

It was really amazing to see such a deep blue piece of ice in the middle of a totally white world. The berg is so blue because it’s the oldest piece of ice from a glaciar. Due to all compression of younger layers of ice, the piece is full of oxygen and cleared from air. (atleast that’s what I’ve been told) Anyway, it looks great;

Vernadsky station. The Ukranian research station on Antarctica that discovered the hole in the ozon layer. It was a group of about 8 scientists that were all very happy to see people after having been totally isolated for about a year. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to live in Antarctica in the winter when it’s around -40 degrees celsius with a period of 24 hours of darkness, and only a couple male scientists around. We asked one of the guys how they handled it, he showed us their gym…

…..

On the last day before we had to return towards Ushuaia we started with a landing in Paradise Bay;

What can I say, it was another beautiful place and we once again had perfect weather, the trip could not have been better…

 

Our last kayaking expedition was at Cooverville Island, and the continent saved our coolest experience for last. After about 2 hours of kayaking a leopard seal came up in the water almost touching one of the kayakers. The guide demanded us to stay close to eachotherbecause even though the seal is just curious and playful, it remains a very dangerous predator (a leopard seal once killed somebody that was snorkling in a dry suit looking for penguins…)

The seal remained very active and about 5 minutes later it went on shore, attacked a penguin colony and was lucky enough to grab one. Now leopard seals don’t just kill a penguin and eat it. They go in the water and play with it while they slowly tear it apart. We saw the whole process from about 3 metres distance in our kayaks, it was absolutely mind-blowing;

If you don’t have a weak stomach then watch this VIDEO OF A LEOPARD SEAL EATING A PENGUIN

It felt like we were part of an episode on National Geographic Channel when we peddled back to the ship. We even saw 3 Minky whales doom up about 15 meteres in front of our kayaks, but since most of us used all battery or camera memory space for the seal, none of us managed to take pictures…

The 3 days to come were all about checking pictures and surviving the Drake Passage, which was rougher than on the way coming and brought me sea sickness for a full day, but it was all very very worth it.

I hope I inspired some of you to visit Antarctica because if you ever have the change, definitely GO!

Take care,

Veron

 Trip report from an unforgettable voyage to Antarctica

 Buenos Aires, Argentina

 It was Wednesday the 18^th of November. I was peddling slowly through the crushed ice while talking to my kayak partner in crime Simon. Our kayak expedition leader had advised us to peddle to somewhere we couldn’t see the other 4 kayaks from the group, to absorb the surroundings of the white continent one more time. It was bizarre realizing we were the only ones peddling around the continent, all you could see was white and all you could hear was an occasional bird singing, or glacier calving. We had to say goodbye to this world, to most likely never come back again.

 

The switch to civilisation, with people, cars and constant noise in Buenos Aires was very strange the first day, but the hardest thing was explaining people what it is that makes Antarctica so impressive and a must visit for everyone that has a chance. I will give it a try in this blog, hope you all will enjoy it…..

 

Embarkation started in Ushuaia, the Argentine city that’s very proud of being the southernmost city in the world. The first hours of sailing through the Beagle channel were very smooth but a bit after we passed the famous Cape Horn we entered the open waters of the Drake Passage. In the Drake Passage the streams of 3 oceans merge, making it the roughest sea in the world. Even though I started taking sea sickness tablets a day before getting on the boat, even a reasonably calm Drake brought me an afternoon and evening of sea sickness. I’m clearly not made to live on rough seas and the best way to describe the feeling is like being in a washing machine for 12 hours straight, it ain’t fun.

A feeling of relief and high expectations as we passed the Drake Passage and saw a sunset in Antarctic waters.

 

The next day we had great weather, not realising yet that we were going to have the best weather the expedition leader has ever had over 86 different voyages! Here the boat is passing Livingston island, an island of the South Shetland Island group.

Our first landing was at Half Moon Island. Since I was one of the 10 that booked the expedition with kayaking, we did kayaking expeditions in a small group while others immediatly went on shore. It ended up being an excellent choice since it brought us closest to the wildlife and made the experience much more personal.

The kayaks were tied to the Zodiac to bring us to the most interesting places to start peddling.

We encountered 2 weddel seals at Half Moon Island so we went on shore. Since they have all most likely never seen humans before and don’t have natural enemies on shore, they don’t care at all about your presence.

We ended up seeing thousands of penguins but the first two made for a cool moment.

Our next destination was Whalers Bay. A bay next to a volcanic Island called Deception Island, where all sorts of whales systematically got slaughtered for their oil back in the day. The ruins of the fabric were still there. We didn’t have too much time to worry about that though, Deception Island was going to be the place where we would have the opportunity for a ”polar plunge”!

Since the volcanoe was still active, there was a chance for hot water. Well, the sea ended up being exactly one degree celsius and quitte a lot of us were stupid enough to jump in!

Watch THIS VIDEO of my polar plunge, complete with Chinese / English commentary from Bryan! 

 

View over Deception Island

One of the reasons Antarctica is so hard to photograph is because it’s hard to give an idea of perspective. This leopard seal we encountered in Whalers Bay was bigger than our kayaks!

This HUGE LEOPARD SEAL VIDEO gives a much better picture, watch it!

The next day was one of my favourite stops at Mikkelsen Harbour. The weather was once again as good as it gets with about 5 degrees, sun and no wind at all.  In about 4 hours of kayaking we saw Weddel, Leopard, Crabeater and Elephant seals and the scenery was absolutely amazing with huge glaciers and a lot of crushed ice to peddle through.

 

Pictures!

Easily 30 metres high.

But unfortunately we were not allowed to peddle through it…

 

Such an unreal world…

 

The sea was always very clear which made for great colour effects.

We could get soooo close!

This leopard seal was happy enough to jawn for my camera, one of my favourite pictures!

 

The glaciers are so impressive because of their size and sculptures, it’s very hard to get a good picture to do it justice. We did see a couple of those glaciars ”roll” which basically means that the 90% of the iceberg thats under water comes up to the surface to roll back over. This creates huge tremor waves at times and is very spectacular to see.

Kayaking through the crushed ice was amazing. The kayaks were very stable and all material was good enough to just fight yourself a way through the ice.

We saw 3 different kinds of penguins frequently and the chinstrap was definitely the coolest kid of the class. This one even wanted to pose for the camera….

I’ll end part 1 here, I will make a part 2 about the visits to Cierva Cove, Neko Harbour, Port Lockroy, Vernadsky station, Petermann Island, Paradise bay and Cooverville Island, so there will be plenty more pictures about ice, penguins and seals to come

 

Apart from that life in Buenos Aires is very good, I may blog a bit about that after the coming one on Antarctica.

 

Hope life’s good for all of you!

Take care,

-Veron