Trip Report - Patagonia & Antarctica New Years 2023

[Mathmagicland]

Day 6 continued -

It’s time for our first zodiac excursion. It was so quiet and peaceful. We were loaded into zodiacs in groups of 10, with an expedition guide at the helm. The zodiacs fan out in different directions around the ship, so we are not all crowded into the same areas.



As with the group of kayakers, a couple of zodiacs got close to a whale. Note the empty zodiac also out, in case any assistance might be needed.




We had Tom, the penguin guy, as our guide this morning. We’d slowly go to an area, then stop to enjoy the peaceful serenity of the moment.




Tom sacrificed his hands reaching into the very cold water to bring up a large chunk of clear ice for us to see and touch.



We were able to get close to some large floating icebergs. Looking back at my photos, these are some of the largest and prettiest icebergs we will see.




Continued in the next post –

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 6 continued -

Tom explained that for safety reasons, we had to stay at least 300 feet from the ice walls on land, because of potential calving. Just as he finished talking, we were fortunate to witness a glacier calving! We were one of the first zodiacs of the cruise to see this, as there was only one other zodiac in the area at the time. It happens so quickly, and without any notice, that it’s almost impossible to get pictures of it happening. But, we all saw it as we’d been looking at the ice wall while Tom was speaking.

We then headed over to an ice floe where a leopard seal was napping in the sun.





We saw a solitary gentoo penguin relaxing on an ice floe



As another zodiac passed us; I snapped this pic because I really liked the reflection in the water




Heading back to the ship for lunch –



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[Mathmagicland]

Day 6 – Continued

Our afternoon location is Danco Island. As we are heading to it, we pass this iceberg with an arch in the center.




We were able to make a landing at Danco Island, where there were some Gentoo penguins waiting for us on the shore. John had explained at our evening briefing the night before, that they often cannot land at Danco, only being able to do so when it is possible and not too windy, so we are fortunate to be able to make a landing here. With yesterday’s landing, we were technically on Antarctica with the outer Shetland islands. Today, we are actually on the large Antarctica continent, one more to mark off for those keeping track

The Danco Island welcoming committee -



Hidden in the background, laying on his tummy, is an Adelie penguin, the only one we will see on our trip. For those keeping track, that makes five breeds of penguins thus far.



Penguins heading up the hill from the beach -



We also hiked up the hill, to one of the penguin colony nesting sites. These gentoo penguins nest on dirt, not ice. There were three colonies of nests at this location.




They make a nest of rocks. We have our first penguin egg sighting!


And the penguins come back down -



This is one of my favourite pictures I took of one of my friends on this trip. While so many people, including us, took most people pictures closer up, with this one I zoomed way out, to show the vastness of Antarctica with just one person walking along. Beautiful isolation.



A couple of parting pictures as we sailed away at the end of our time here. Tomorrow we will head to two more landing sites.



This picture was taken at 9:00pm. Still very light outside, with blue skies peeking through the clouds.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 7 – Goodness Glaciers!

Today will be a busy, exciting, and different day as we will have several AbD Antarctica firsts!!

The weather the night before had called for 99% clouds, this was the sky at 0500.



However, we saw the clouds clearing early, as just an hour later sun and blue skies were starting to peak through.



This morning our landing site is Dorian Bay; no ice in the seas in this area. At last night’s briefing, expedition leader John was cautiously optimistic we would be able to stop here and make a landing, and we are happy we are able to do so. It will be our earliest start, 0800 for the first groups going ashore.

Dorian Bay is our first landing where there are buildings on shore. Before we go to shore, Nick from the expedition team is out cutting steps in the snow & ice for walking on the snow hikes. If our on-shore time starts at 0800, Nick & crew are out there very early setting things up for us and making it safe.

This was our climb from the beach landing to the huts & path in the snow to the penguin colony.



There are two old structures at Dorian Bay, a smaller one built by Argentina in the 1950’s and a larger one, Damoy Hut, built by the British in 1975.

Argentina hut – with their flag colors on the side & in the window.



Damoy Hut, the British hut, where snow has been dug out around it so we can reach the steps to get inside. It is blue now, but a project is in the works to repaint it to its original orange color.





Damoy Hut served as a rest stop for pilots from flights to and from a summer-use ice airstrip behind the Hut. This was used when they had to wait until the sea-ice would clear sufficiently near Rothera Base, the British Antarctic research station. The Hut and airstrip closed in 1995, and this is now a historic site and monument maintained & administered by the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust, which oversees seven historic sites on Antarctica.

We have an AbD first – the Damoy Hut is opened while we were there, and we will be able to go inside.





Note the old snowshoes under the bunks. There were three of these set-ups in this room, one on each wall & one down the center.





Continued in next post –

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 7 – Continued –

There is a penguin colony around the curve of the bay from the huts. While some took the upper path along the snow to the colony, we walked along the shore past where the zodiacs were landing. We were warned to stay away from the edge of the snow in this area, because it was melting & thus unstable. Jeremy, one of the expedition naturalists, was also in this area to answer questions & be sure we didn’t stray into the penguin paths.



We saw a few brown Skuas along the beach as we walked.



These birds prey on penguin eggs, so the penguins will chase them away. This penguin chased the skua ahead of him for several feet, before the skua finally flew off.



We watched some penguins working on a nest – they were quite busy while we were there, and didn’t seem to mind us watching them work.



And one checking himself out in the water, sort of like Tinkerbell on the mirror in Peter Pan –



We got to the penguin colony, and spent some time watching the penguins walk their paths in the snow between the colony and the shore.



Wait, what is that peeking up above the colony – a mast? Yes, that’s what it is – from a two-masted sailing ship. Aside from the Ponant sister ship we saw on our first afternoon in Antarctica, this was the only other ship we saw during our time here. I can’t imagine getting anywhere close to or through the Drake Passage in such a small ship. Even the smaller ships must coordinate to ensure the IAATO rules are respected with regards to the limits of people on shore. John had OK’d this ship to land a zodiac with 6-8 people down the beach from our landing area; the sailing ship had checked with our ship before doing so.

Note the two huts, and a few people still at the landing site.




Before heading back to the ship, I took this picture; it was a longer zodiac ride to today’s landing.



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[Mathmagicland]

Day 7 – Continued –

Today’s afternoon temperature was a sunny, warm 42 degrees, with crystal blue skies. This ended up being the warmest day in Antarctica. While that may not sound like warm, when we’ve got all of our layers plus our parkas, it makes for a warm to hot day. Many of us shed a layer or two for our afternoon landing.

This is a view of a group of mountains known as the Seven Sisters, in the Gerlache Strait near our afternoon landing area. Stunningly beautiful!



This afternoon’s landing site is Port Lockroy, another first for an AbD Antarctica expedition cruise. This one has us all very excited when John shared it with us in yesterday’s nightly briefing, for several reasons.

A little background - this is a UK research station. It was established in 1944 during WWII and occupied until 1962. The British left it for several years, then re-established it in 1996. The original research building is there and now houses a small museum, one of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust sites…and a GIFT SHOP! Yes, folks, we will be able to do some shopping on Antarctica while helping to support the UK Antarctica Heritage Sites.

There is a new research & living quarters hut for the researchers that has been built behind the museum. Due to Covid, there was a two-year suspension on sending people to staff it; they just resumed staffing in the fall of 2022. Over 6,000 people applied for four positions; in another historic first, four ladies were selected for the five-month assignment from November through March. Here is a news article that caught my eye last fall; I never expected we’d be able to stop there.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antarctica-post-office-count-penguins-jobs-uk-antarctic-heritage-trust/

The site has no running water, so the people assigned there depend on passing ships to get an infrequent shower. Supplies come from UK ships heading to or from the Falklands every couple of weeks or so. There is also no internet; they only have email.

AbD guide Michaela had another surprise for us last night - there is an official UK post office on the island, and she had worked with one of her friends to design a special post card for us to mail from here! Wow!!! Penguin Post, gotta love it! And, this is our third AbD Antarctica First of the day, to be able to mail postcards from Antarctica. The post cards were delivered to our cabins the prior evening for today.



The station postmistress, Clara, came on board after lunch and shared a presentation in the theatre about their mission and operations. This was very interesting.

We’d written and addressed our post cards before lunch. Clara brought over their postage stamps (which only have penguins, of course) and a special UK Antarctica postmark stamp. We got our post cards postmarked, and would be able to mail them from Port Lockroy if we wanted to do so. Clara would then hand-cancel them & load them up with other mail on a passing UK ship headed for the Falklands. From the Falklands, they will be flown to Great Britain and then dropped into the post for delivery all around the world.

Sample of stamps at the Penguin Post Office -



Postmark on the left, hand-cancellation on the right -




** Post-cruise note - my postcard was dropped in the Penguin Post on 5 January 2023 and arrived in California on 16 February, six weeks later. I’m happy it arrived in great condition, no real damage from its long postal journey. I’m still waiting for my postcard from the End of the World post in Ushuaia.

Because this island is so small, we would go over in our individual color groups rather than our usual two groups per landing. Each group would have 45 minutes ashore there, which doesn’t sound like a lot but was enough time. This is also why we had such an early start time this morning, so we’d have sufficient time for everything related to Port Lockroy this afternoon.

Lower right corner, those snow-covered rocks in the bay, is Port Lockroy base.



A closer look at Port Lockroy - the large structure in the center is a storage hut; the roof peaks of the old museum building, their new station building, and the radio antenna are just barely visible over the crest of the snow on the rocks.



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[Mathmagicland]

Day 7 – Continued –

This landing was tricky, as it was stepping off onto very large rocks, not a beach. There were several expedition team members helping us up and down the rocks to the island.



We have arrived at Port Lockroy Base A!



There are three structures on the island – the new research station, the museum, and a storage shed.



The shed seen in the photo above -



An old sled behind the shed -



The new research & residence hut is seen here , with their radio antenna in the background, behind the flagpole -



Penguins always have the right-away –



Cruising along the penguin highway




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[Mathmagicland]

Day 7 – Continued –

I was glad I recalled reading the article about this place, as I was able to chat with the ladies about their work. The penguins moved into the island in 1980. They have an ongoing penguin research study going back 25 years since the reopening in 1996. Currently there are approx 1000 Gentoo penguins living there; the research study counts birds, eggs, hatchlings, and tracks chick survival during their time at the base.






The museum is filled with original supplies and equipment; this is the only place we were asked to wear masks.



The old heater -



Old polar wear and gloves -





This is the flag that was flying when the base was closed back in 1962 -



If you are able to stop here, be sure to sign the guest book in the old recreation room to record your visit. Adventures by Disney was here!



Penguin Post – where our postcards were mailed.







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[Mathmagicland]

Day 7 – Continued –

Port Lockroy shopping – several of us took advantage of this shopping opportunity. The gift shop is better stocked than I expected, with a variety of items. We picked up a couple of t-shirts and a small book about the place. I also adopted a penguin.





This was a very popular purchase, as several folks were later seen wearing this shirt around the ship -





Byron & a couple of the AbD guides had nice gifts for the staff to commemorate the first AbD Antarctica visit - mouse ears!



Penguins around the flagpole seen in the pic above -



After leaving Port Lockroy, we rode in the zodiacs to Jougla Point, a nearby peninsula with another penguin colony plus a couple of Weddell seals. Because we had our purchases with us, we opted not to get off here and stayed on board to head back to the ship.






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[Mathmagicland]

We have our final AbD Antarctica first for today later this evening, when we will be the first to sail through the Peltier Channel.



In the evening recap & briefing, John shared a surprise for us from Captain Fab -








Since we were sleeping at time, we had no idea we were sailing the outline of Mickey! The ultimate Hidden Mickey, what a fun surprise from Captain Fab.




This was a day full of firsts and surprises- what will tomorrow bring?

 

[sayhello]

That's cool you got to do so many firsts!

Sayhello

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

I agree wiht SayHello--I love all the firsts. Going inside the hut was so cool as was the visit to Port Lockroy. So cool!!! Really enjoying this trip report

 

[Mathmagicland]

That's cool you got to do so many firsts!

Sayhello

I agree wiht SayHello--I love all the firsts. Going inside the hut was so cool as was the visit to Port Lockroy. So cool!!! Really enjoying this trip report

Thanks! This is such an amazing trip!

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 8 - Walk Like A Penguin

During last night’s recap and briefing for today, our expedition leader John said that today would be our first true Expedition Day. What would that mean? Well, it means we will adapt as conditions warrant and allow, because of some expected strong winds overnight and into the day. Thus, the AbD guides have declared today will be another Pajama Day! The crew usually wears bathrobes, unless it’s the A/V guy in the theatre who pulls out his flannel PJs. Even Captain Fab joins in the fun! Note the captain's epaulettes on his shoulders -



Today our planned morning stop will be Wilhelmina Bay. This is definitely wait and see due to the weather, as John & the captain are not sure what we might be able to do until the expedition team has a chance to scope things out after arrival. Looking out to my balcony railing, ice has formed overnight, and it is lightly snowing. The crew was scraping ice off of the pool deck. It is also still very windy as we head into the bay.






We get good news – we are 8 miles into Wilhelmina Bay, and there is no wind; we do have some light snow. So, this morning will be a zodiac cruise! It will be cold and snowy. A few folks decide not to venture out, but we are all in! It’s all part of the Antarctica experience.




Our zodiacs get covered in snow and there is sea ice all around -




Through pure luck of the draw, we get Tom the Penguin Guy as our zodiac driver this morning. And why is that fortunate? Because, we have another wayward penguin sighting today - an Emperor Penguin!!!! WOW!!! (This is penguin species #6 for those still counting.) He is a long way from home, not usually found in this part of Antarctica. What could be more fun than seeing an Emperor Penguin with Tom? We sat there for about 15 minutes watching the penguin hop around on the ice or flap his wings, or just stand there majestically watching us while Tom shared information and answered questions, and we took lots of pictures. Tom also commented, if he was not working, he could sit there for most of the day observing this Emperor. Now you know why I’m calling him the Penguin Guy!










And, Tom with the Emperor in the background -





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[Mathmagicland]

Day 8 continued -

We also spotted a lonely gentoo penguin resting on an ice berg –



We had AbD guide Byron in the zodiac with us. As Byron was taking some video of the areas around our zodiac, we see a second glacier calving across the bay, Byron was lucky to catch it in his video. This is a screen grab, so the picture is not great & it is hard to see as we were rather far away, but it is the calving in process so I have to include it.




While we were observing penguins and glacier calving, a couple of zodiacs which headed out in the other direction were being checked out by a whale –






And, to show how much it was snowing, here is picture of guide Tom as we off loaded at the end of our zodiac cruise - note the snow on the zodiac and especially on Tom’s jacket collar (that is not fleece!).





Continued in the next post –

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 8 continued -

This was the first day we got back to the ship and some of our clothing items were a bit wet. The waterproof pants worked great, but the elastic at the bottoms of the legs was wet, along with parkas, gloves & neck gaiters. I found an extra outlet in the cabin, along the baseboard across from the closet in the entry hall. It was great for using the hair dryer to help dry things hanging on the hooks or in the bathroom, between the morning and afternoon outings.

After lunch and before our afternoon outing, the AbD guides offered another Decorate your Parka session as they had some extra patches from our first session.

As we head towards our afternoon location, we are again in Expedition Mode – not sure where we will end up or what we will find when we get there. We are heading towards Charlotte Bay; however, when we arrived, the water was too choppy so we did not stay there. We continued on towards nearby Recess Cove, a largely unvisited area, out of the wind but we were unable to land so we will stay on board and watch the scenery from the ship. The AbD guides set up cookie decorating in the upstairs dining area, there was a movie in the theatre, and folks relaxed while we cruised past some ice bergs. The sun was trying to peek out, but wasn’t too successful. It’s a bit disappointing not to be able to have an off-ship outing this afternoon, but safety is the priority & it’s OK.








Next up, tomorrow will be our last day for expeditions off the ship.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 9 – Whale Tales!

Today is our last full day in Antarctica. Here’s an interesting fact they shared today – there are no ants in Antarctica! We have cruised back up the Gerlache Strait and past Trinity Island in the Bransfield Strait, to Mikkelsen Harbour. This will be our last opportunity for a landing, as we have a zodiac cruise scheduled for the afternoon. John said this was our most adventurous day of the cruise. It’s never a dull moment here in Antarctica!

I have to give a huge shout-out to the Expedition team for today – they went above and beyond to ensure we would still be able to get our final landing experience this morning! In Mikkelsen Harbour, we have a very icy landing. The tide started dropping after we arrived, and the ice came in after the expedition team had done the inspections prior to our landing. While not an unsafe landing, it was definitely a bit trickier with all of the ice that came and continued to come in the entire time we were here. The expedition team had several folks at the shoreline, doing their best to keep our landing area somewhat cleared of ice. I say somewhat because it was impossible to be ice-free today. We are walking through the ice to get to and from the shore.







Note the shovels in these next two pictures. The team is using them to try to keep some of the ice cleared in this area. There are big chunks of arctic ice all along the shore.






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[Mathmagicland]

Day 9 continued –

Mikkelsen Harbour is an early whaling site. On the shoreline, we found remains of an old whaling ship, and also whale bones!







This is such an interesting stop, so different from our other ones.








Continued in next post –

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 9 continued –


As we walked up onto the snow, there were about a dozen napping Weddell seals. The Weddell seals will stay under the water for the winter & come up on the land in the summer.

Those small 'rocks' just below the hikers are not rocks, but the Weddell seals.



A gentoo penguin keeping sentry over the seals --



He must be having a nice dream, as he's smiling while he naps -




We also saw several Gentoo penguins – the expedition staff was careful, as usual, to provide access through the snow for the penguins while we were there.

Penguin nesting hill -







These two decided they wanted to check out a few of the guests a bit closer -






And a view of our landing site from up on the hill –





Continued in next post –

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 9 continued –


This afternoon, for our last activity, we will have a zodiac cruise around Cierva Cove. It’s raining when we go out, we’re saying it is because Antarctica will be sad to see us go We cruise around the cove, seeing glaciers, a few penguins, and our first Snow Petrel flying gracefully overhead.

















We were so caught up with enjoying this last closer look at Antarctica, that we hadn’t really noticed the large box in the zodiac. Ponant and the expedition team had a surprise for each zodiac during the cruise – champagne and/or orange juice, in crystal glasses, for a toast to Antarctica!





Tonight, we will go back through the Bransfield Strait & the Shetland Islands, to start our return trip across the Drake Passage. This morning, the captain had shared it looked like we would have 16-18-foot swells for several hours starting around midnight after we exited the Shetland Islands, before the waters calmed down. At tonight’s briefing, that had changed a bit for the better, to expected seas of 11 feet, and some mild pitching of the ship for a few hours at the start of our crossing. Because of this, there was a ‘run’ on green apples at the buffet at dinner, with folks taking them from the large fruit displays around the serving stations. (Green apples are supposed to help with seasickness symptoms.)

What will our return trip be, a Drake Shake or another Drake Lake?