We’re about two-thirds through our trip to the Antarctic Peninsula now, not including crossing Drake’s Passage.\u00c2\u00a0 We had thought we might get through the whole thing without connecting to the Internet — we don’t need it for checking for global catastrophe because an 8-small-page version of the New York Times is strewn around the lounge every day, including the Sunday crossword puzzle. But Ray’s cousin needed it for five minutes, and he’s sharing his 30-minute minimum purchase.<\/p>\n
The weather has been mostly very good, and the seas have been mostly very smooth.\u00c2\u00a0 Much caution was given about Drake’s Passage being rough, and one of the staff members seemed quite disappointed that it wasn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopefully he’ll remain disappointed on the return.\u00c2\u00a0 Today it was a little stormy, with some rain and some swells while we were out in a Zodiac photographing icebergs, and a leopard seal who was lounging on one.\u00c2\u00a0 The temperatures are somewhat higher than most places in America at this time, typically in the 30s.\u00c2\u00a0 The sky is always cloudy, though occasionally the sun finds a hole through them to shine on something for an interesting picture.<\/p>\n
Since arriving at the peninsula, things have gotten quite busy.\u00c2\u00a0 A typical day starts at 3:30 am when the sun comes up.\u00c2\u00a0 We make sure the blinds are closed and continue sleeping.\u00c2\u00a0 At 7 the friendly voice of the expedition director comes on the speakers everywhere and tells us what is happening in the morning.\u00c2\u00a0 A buffet breakfast starts about then, but sometimes there is something interesting happening, like scenery or a whale, to get bundled up to come out on deck to see.\u00c2\u00a0 Shortly after breakfast there is usually a shore excursion, usually walking around to see penguins or up to a more distant view spot.\u00c2\u00a0 For this we put on the uninflated life vests which are stored in our room, and also waterproof boots and pants, since the landing is usually in a few inches of water.\u00c2\u00a0 We get in a Zodiac for the short shuttle to shore, put the vest in a bin, and walk around.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve walked on sand, gravel, dirt, rocks, and snow — each place is different.\u00c2\u00a0 We come back, have a buffet lunch, and then there is another shore excursion in the afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 When we return from that there is happy hour in the lounge, a recap of the day’s events with little presentations from the staff, and dinner, which is usually picking one of two or three appetizers and main courses.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes we hang out in the lounge after dinner, but usually we’re pretty tired and go to sleep when the sun sets around 11:30 P.M. It doesn’t really get dark — last night we identified a cape petrel flying by the porthole at 1 AM in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n
The staff includes:<\/p>\n
We’ve seen some large colonies of the three types of penguins on the peninsula:\u00c2\u00a0 Adelie, Gentoo, and Chinstrap.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not likely we’ll see any others, except if an individual is lost for some reason.\u00c2\u00a0 Most of the emperor penguins Antarctica is famous for live much further south (and west) along the Ross Sea.\u00c2\u00a0 Wherever there are penguins, there are skuas which prey on their young and their eggs.\u00c2\u00a0 We haven’t been buzzed by skuas here like we were in Puerto Deseado, perhaps because we’re far away from their own nests.<\/p>\n
The last day and a half has been dominated by a visit to the Palmer Station, a US research station.\u00c2\u00a0 Normally there are only twelve visits a year from cruise ships, but because two of the staff had parents onboard our ship, we were invited for an “extra” visit.\u00c2\u00a0 There doesn’t seem to be much happening there right now — there are eight scientists (including a visual artist and a composer) and about 23 supporting staff; usually there are a few more scientists.\u00c2\u00a0 The staff work for seven months at a time, overlapping slightly with their replacement for the other half of the year.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re all employed by Raytheon, the Antarctic equivalent of Blackwater.\u00c2\u00a0 They have a nice Internet connection, phones which are local to Denver, and a hot tub (officially for “hydrotherapy for divers”).\u00c2\u00a0 Like our visit to Pitcairn, we walked around the station for an hour, mostly at their gift shop and lounge — we weren’t invited to see any labs.\u00c2\u00a0 And they were all invited to spend today with us on the ship, getting a day off and a free ride to the islands we visited today.\u00c2\u00a0 The composer is three weeks into her six-week visit, and is recording penguin sounds and other natural sounds to use in a composition she’ll further develop when she gets back.\u00c2\u00a0 I played her a few of the rough recordings of things I’ve made since I’ve been on the trip.<\/p>\n
This part of the trip has not been without its own technical difficulties.\u00c2\u00a0 This afternoon instead of going on shore we, like most people, went on a Zodiac cruise around some icebergs.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a little stormy, and between the rain and the splashes into the boat from the rough seas, our waterproof gear was challenged.\u00c2\u00a0 The waterproof pants I rented turned out to have a split seam in the rear end, and the cheap waterproof gloves we bought before leaving turned out to be more cheap than waterproof.\u00c2\u00a0 But the parkas which were issued as part of the trip have done a great job keeping us warm and dry, and I’m looking forward to removing their warm linings and using them as raincoats in California and England and other rainy places.\u00c2\u00a0 My new small camera was in the pocket of the waterproof pants — they got a little moist and stopped working.\u00c2\u00a0 After a night of drying out, it seems to be operational again — we’ll see how good the pictures are.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ll be much more careful.<\/p>\n
Ray went to the bridge after we all got back to the ship and reports that the wind speed when we got out of the Lemaire Channel was around 45 knots, blowing horizontal snow.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s died down since then and the ride is smooth as we navigate through the Gerlache Strait.<\/p>\n
There’s quite a variety of guests on board, including an 8-year-old.\u00c2\u00a0 Most everyone is American, but there are a couple Japanese guys who booked a week ago, some folks from Vancouver, and a few from Germany and Ecuador.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve met several of them at mealtime — we were talking to some at dinner and Ray realized that one woman was on the Fairsea in 1977 when he went to see his first eclipse.\u00c2\u00a0 Small world.\u00c2\u00a0 Another gentleman was talking about his job as a Six-Sigma consultant, about process quality, etc., and Ray and I both independently realized he could have simply said “I’m Dogbert”.\u00c2\u00a0 This guy has taken the best photo I’ve seen on the ship, a penguin mid-jump.<\/p>\n
This is an awesomely beautiful place, and we’ve been keeping warm and well, learning a lot, and having a wildlife experience similar to that of the Galapagos (except that there is much less wildlife here to experience).\u00c2\u00a0 We have two more days of hard expeditioning, two days of relaxed returning, and then we’ll be back in Argentina to resume our road trip.\u00c2\u00a0 And then we’ll have time to check our e-mail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We’re about two-thirds through our trip to the Antarctic Peninsula now, not including crossing Drake’s Passage.\u00c2\u00a0 We had thought we might get through the whole thing without connecting to the Internet — we don’t need it for checking for global catastrophe because an 8-small-page version of the New York Times is strewn around the lounge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apresmidi.net\/antarctica\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}