Antarctic Round Two

Antarctica Round Two

Ah to be back on the seas. Today I visited the Falkland Islands, Carcass and Saunders Islands. It was a wet day, another first experience. No one got wet on the last Antarctica trip but today it was raining and the swells were so large we were getting soaked by the waves as we took the zodiac boats to land. So that was a new experience to see if your stuff will dry out before the next landing and having to resort to a second pair of gloves. This boat is well equipped though and has an onboard shop to fill all of those needs if you didn’t bring waterproof pants, gloves or bag. It was busy after that first wet ride. It is well stocked in comparison to the last ships store. But the last ship had better food. Amazing gourmet meals that were so fresh and hot, this one works on mass production, good, but the other was better. That doesn’t mean I have stopped eating the three course meals they put in front of me at each meal, it just means they are going to have to roll me off this ship at the end.

So the first dinner on the boat an expedition crew member sat at my table. She is the wellness leader, yoga instructor, zodiac driver and if you want help making healthy eating choices. Turns out her name is Sarah and she is also from Peterborough. She was telling me that her grandparents saw an article in the Peterborough Examiner about a girl named Sarah from Peterborough going to Antarctica and how they were saying it could be her, but it wasn’t her. I said that is funny because the article is about me and you are seeing me as I return to Antarctica because the first trip that they mentioned in the article was so good. So small world and crazy to think we are on the same ship and then that we would sit at the same table. There are eight Canadian crew members on this ship. They either like or dislike my Toronto Maple Leafs headband.

Today we saw King penguins and Rock hopper penguins, we didn’t see these species last time. The penguin chicks were large here about the size of the adults, but they were fluffy.  They looked like they were wearing Betty, my fur coat.

Happy New Year! It was a good one spent in the middle of nowhere, closest land mark, Shag rocks. There was a black and white themed party and I took third place for my black dress covered in paper snowflakes and a white paper crown. One girl on staff made a white tutu out of garbage bags that from a distance looked like a real tutu and I thought why the heck does she have a tutu on board? A good time was had by all.

Salisbury Bay on South Georgia was incredible. It is said that there are 250 000 breeding pairs of King Penguins there and whatever the estimation they are there on mass. It was stunning to see the hillside thick with penguins.  My photo for the “landscape” contest was runner up with this photo of the penguin “landscape.”

Check out my stones, my heart is still racing.

Fur seals are also new to me and my Antarctic experiences and they can be aggressive so you are not to run away from them, just back away, make noise by picking up rocks if they are around and smashing them together. So Grytviken South Georgia is a former whaling station and now museum, post office and research station laden with fur seals. It is also the resting place of Shekleton the great explorer. The day started with a whisky toast at Shakleton’s grave and as I was walking along the beach to the Whaling station a fur seal tried to attack me. I was not prepared as I had a camera in my hand and did what you are not to do, I tried to run, but ran into the path of another one. I escaped but my heart was racing and I thought I was going to have a heart attack, I am sure the whisky shot for breakfast might have played a factor in this. The fur seal story doesn’t end here. Then in the afternoon I was taking another walk on the other side of the bay, walking this time to Shakleton’s memorial and ended up going on the walk by myself which is a rare thing on a ship this size. I grabbed two field stones to keep in my hands for the kilometer walk and had to smash them together a few times to keep the fur seals at bay. At one point I had to circle a pile of rocks to keep a huge fur seal from getting me. I later learned that this is called ambush corner. My heart was racing by the time I made it to the memorial and who would have thought that I would be afraid of fur seals, but man when you have to sidestep over them and have them snarl and hiss at you and then come racing at you, you would be scared too. Supposedly they are big bluffers.

I am on the right in the red jacket. 

It has been days since I have added to this. It was another case of being so busy on the ship with site seeing, lectures, conversations, hat parties, barbq’s, yoga, whale spotting and of course three course meals. The stories are numerous too numerous for you probably, but it has been absolutely amazing. Each day I think wow what an incredible day, it cannot get better than this, but then the next day is even better and the day after that even better, each day was absolutely incredible. Let me give you the Cole’s note version.  Every day we saw whales at close range in the zodiac boats (another first). It started one day with them being 15m away and I was impressed, then 5m away, then another day Minkie whales swam right under our boat 1m below the surface twice and circled in the area for 20 minutes while we were watching Humpbacks at 5m away, again I thought ok this is amazing, wow. But the next day and our last day in Antarctica proper I was still screaming like a school girl, pretty cool after a month in Antarctica when you are still screaming with glee on the last day. In the first ride of the day a Minkie came right up and arched right beside the boat that was ahead of us and left them and us in awe. Then that afternoon was another topper. I was in the last boat that left the ship so it turned out there was only four of us in it as opposed to 10 and we came across two Humpback whales “logging” sleeping at the surface. It was wicked to be 5m away from them as they “slept” and breathed. Then they just kept floating closer and closer until they were within a meter of the boat and they blew and I was sprayed in the face with water. The whole time our engine was off and if listening to them breath wasn’t enough the ice and glaciers are calving all around us and you can hear the sounds of the ice.

Not to be forgotten are the Orca whales we saw from the bow of the ship, two adults with a calf in between them and 1m off the bow of the ship. How about a barbq on the stern where it was so warm I wore a t-shirt for part of the night and took first place at the hat party, winning a bottle of Malbec red wine, my new favorite beverage.

I was able to find some tranquility and time alone and was highly entertained by the incredibly social and fabulous staff and guests on the ship. I took another polar plunge this time doing a full swim of the breast stroke. There was a woman (75) and a man (81) each complete the polar plunge, man I can only hope to being doing that at their age, good on them as the Aussies say.

The chicks I saw hatching three weeks earlier are now almost the size of their parents and covered in fluffy fur. That was really cool to see them so big. Three of the landings were repeats to my last trip and it was so neat to compare the species growth in three weeks the change in the icebergs and the changes in the topography with less snow on some glaciers and land.  

Can you spot the difference? A lone Macaroni Penguin in the mix of Chinstrap Penguins.

It was so nice to be completely disconnected for three weeks with no internet. The best though was that no one had access to their cell phones and text messaging. It was refreshing to be around over 200 people (passengers and staff) not distracted by cell phones. I was reminded of this this morning when someone in my hostel room’s phone made that annoying vibration sound against the table indicating they had a message. Imagine people not sneaking a peek at the dinner table and looking around the dining room seeing people fully engaged in conversations, with no electronic distractions, or having to say hello to someone as you passed them in the hall and not having to look at people sneaking looks at their phones in the hope that someone has messaged them or to “check the time.” This will probably never happen again. As I type this there are two guys sitting across the way and one is engrossed in his phone while the other sits there waiting watching him.

Not to be forgotten are the numerous types of seals that are pretty cute to watch on icebergs and on land, even if they might want to chase you on land, red wine on the bow as the sunsets, live music in the bar from Scott from More Please, his CD is coming out in the fall and he is a fellow Canadian watch for him touring through the Patch.

I arrived home to this lovely Antarctica cake made by Chloe who was shorter than me when I left but who is pretty excited to now be taller than me.

Until I return….if you get the chance, go to Antarctica. A one word description; INCREDIBLE!

Someday I will add the videos, I still have to figure that out, so stay tuned. 

Two links of tons of photos have been added so don't miss that there are two links.

Click on this link for photos from Antarctica. They are a collection of others photos

Here is the 2nd link with some of my photos from Antarctica