40 Below: An Antarctic Birthday Quest #8 (First glimpses of Antarctica)

Saturday March 11

Brabant Island

At the briefing the night before, we learned that the weather was very bad on the Weddell Sea side of the Peninsula, so we were going to head pretty far south down the peninsula in search of calmer seas and places where we could land and kayak. This meant one more morning at sea. They tried to do a landing in the morning but the wind kicked up and made it impossible, but the staff always has a backup plan.

Brabant Island was where Antarctica really started to feel like Antarctica to me. This is a high-stakes trip. It’s expensive, it takes a long time, for many it is a bucket list item, and it is a completely unpredictable environment. This is a nightmare scenario for people in the polar travel industry. You have a high-dollar investment from many people in your hands and you really can’t guarantee them anything. This hedging starts during the phone calls with the different companies while you are shopping for the expedition. All of them say the same kinds of things. You often hear things like, “this is a good time for seeing whales” or “it is possible that penguin chicks will have hatched by then”, but they never make any guarantees. They don’t even guarantee that you will land anywhere. The weather is so unpredictable and so fickle in this part of the world, it can happen that boats will come down and not be able to do a single landing.

Brabant Island felt like the fulfillment of all the ideas I had in my head about what I would see when I came to Antarctica. Our boat had passed long slivers of glaciated islands and finally settled in a bay full of brash ice (that is ice that looks like the top of your drink when you put crushed ice in it – small, fluid pieces that are very broken up and cover the entire surface).After three and a half days at sea, and a morning of searching around for where we could finally have calm enough waters to do an “operation” as the staff call them, this landing was HIGHLY anticipated. I’m sure it’s as hard for the staff to keep us aboard and entertained as it is for passengers to not be disappointed and complain with every change of plan and new delay or disappointment.

Brabant Island truly delivered. It’s interesting how quickly we all forgot how stir crazy we got when we finally suited up and got in our kayaks or zodiacs and got out into the atmospheric, cloudy and sunny, ice-filled landscape. It was cold but not too windy, I was close to the beautiful deep blue, crystal clear water, and my kayak buddy, Prune (also my Gypsy Cove hiking buddy), is an excellent paddler. We could go anywhere we wanted, fast, smooth and in a straight line. He has a little GPS thing he totes everywhere so he can map all his locations and it beeps every so often and that’s the only annoying thing about having him as my buddy. Otherwise we could silently paddle through the ice-scapes in peace and fluid motion. He also shares my urge to go to the farthest end, all the way around the bend and every few minutes we would check to see where the guides were looking and then “make a break for it” in his words, and then the guides would have to call us back. It was a fun game.

But mostly we just had a beautiful paddle around this bay and found a leopard seal, watched the clouds move and the light change, and tried to soak in the overwhelming gratitude at being able to be in a place like this.

Sleeping leopard seal - much cuter when not attacking penguins.

That took us well into the afternoon but they decided it was calm enough that the boat would offer the polar plunge that afternoon. Cosmic Crunch has been talking about it nearly every day since we started the trip. She was raring to go, and it was her enthusiasm that ended up being the reason I decided, despite being already thoroughly chilled from two hours in the kayak and losing feeling in my toes, that I would join her. I told her I’d go with her to do it, and so jump into the frozen bay we did! I’m really glad too. It was fun, a good bonding moment for us, and exhilarating.

 

Sunday March 12

Port Lockroy and Jougla Point/Weinke Island

The next morning, the winds had picked up again so we spent the first half of the day cruising around looking for a good landing spot. The night before the katabatic winds off the glaciers were gusting up to 70mph, hurricane force winds. I could feel the ship heel over when one of them woke up around 4am and just about rolled me out of bed. We did come across a large group of humpback whales that were just ahead of the ship and we watched them for about a half an hour. Whale sightings are almost as effective as a zodiac cruise or a landing in salvaging what can feel like lost time when you can’t get off the ship. I’m not a keen birder, but the people on the ship who are, find the time aboard on the decks spotting birds to be an excellent use of their time and are outside for most of the day, every day.

Port Lockeroy base

That afternoon we did end up at Port Lockroy to see the base of operations for the British Antarctic Survey and a small historic research station, as well as a colony of Gentoo penguins. We spent the afternoon walking around both little islands and observing the penguins with their little chicks. Many of the newborns won’t survive the oncoming winter because they won’t have enough time to gain the weight they need to survive it. About 30% of penguin chicks make it through their first year.

Gentoo penguin and chicks

Everywhere we land we are surrounded by glaciers, and they often come all the way to the sea, so there are very few places to land. And this trip is the last one before all tourism closes for the austral winter, the weather is just starting to turn back to ranging winds and temperatures are dropping as the sun spends less and less time in the sky. This makes conditions excellent for witnessing calving glaciers and we were lucky enough to be around when it happened. Nothing massive but a few large chunks would fall into the sea and a THUNDEROUS sound would snap everyone’s heads in various directions as it reverberates around the other surrounding ice walls.

Jougla point

It was snowing and there were high winds that afternoon so the outings were chilly and the feeling of coming back to the ship and getting a hot drink in the lounge with everyone to share experiences and what we all saw has become one of my favorite things about this trip. Going from the bitter cold, wind and snow and adventure of it all, climbing back up onto the gangway from the zodiac, and then being welcoming into the heated deck of the ship, getting out of all the many layers of outerwear, and then stepping into a bustling room to wrap your hands around a hot cup of something and warm up together is such a treat. It reinforces how lovely it is to share this with other people and just what an extreme place this is. The bride and groom aboard finally had their wedding on Port Lockroy and we celebrated them with a dance party that evening. Led by 79 year old Radish, who has taken quite a liking to my roommate. He’s been married for 52 years, but his wife is also not with him due to severe arthritis, he says.