"Good morning, good morning by dear Antarcticans"

27th January 2016
This morning we were still crossing the Drake Passage and it was still being kind to us. Yes we were rolling but not as much as it could.
Each morning quiet music is played in to the cabins as a wake up call. Julieta then comes over the speaker with her favourite saying, "Good morning, good morning by dear Antarcticans "
This morning we could see land a long way off on the port side. It was Cape Horn, but no worries we don't go anywhere near it.
This mornings lecture was given by Alejandro and it was about a project he works for. The "Southern Right Whale Programming" studies the whales in an area off Argentina.
At 1:20pm we left the Drake behind us and entered the Beagle Channel. Moving along the Channel we were joined by a number of Dusky Dolphins riding our bow wave, they seemed to be having a lot of fun jumping out of the water in front of the ship. There was another ship travelling parallel to us and the dolphins alternated between ships as if to give everyone a good show.
We made good progress yesterday and today across the "Drake Lake" as Julieta called it. We therefore anchored in the Beagle Channel and a pilot will come on board later to take us into Ushuaia where we will dock around 7:00 tomorrow morning.
We had our final recap with the guides this afternoon and we have all been given a CD that contains information from the trip. This includes an expedition log of what we did, a map of where we went, a list of wildlife seen and where, and a slide show of the trip. It's a really nice touch.
We then had a certificate presentation when we were each presented with a certificate stating that we had crossed the perilous waters of the Drake Passage on board the expedition vessel Ushuaia from Tierra del Fuego to Antarctica and landed on the Antarctic Continent at Gonzalez Videla Station 64 degrees 49' S, 62 degrees 51' W.
This evening we had our farewell meal and as it is my birthday today I was presented with a cake and a round of happy birthday to you. The cake was shared with those people sharing a table with me.
So the exciting bit is over and tomorrow I start the long trip home.
I hope you have enjoyed the blog and the photos. This is just a small sample of photos, there is around 1500 photos if you would like to see a few more! The last photo here shows me and the Great expedition team the next day after we docked.

"Drake" Revisited

26th January 2016
Yesterday evening as we left the South Shetland Islands we started are two day voyage back to Ushuaia via the Drake Passage. Should The Drake be kind to use again? If anything it was even kinder, don't get me wrong we were still rolling but may be not so much and the roll rate (speed of the role) was not so fast.
There were a number of lectures today. Kta gave  lecture on Cetaceans, whales and dolphins. In the lecture she mentioned the College of the Atlantic (COA) and how they identify Humpback whales from the markings and the trailing edge shape of the flook. The photo I took in Flanders Bay, although small, show the underside quite well. I have the email address and will send them the photo along with the date and location when I get home.
For the second lecture of the day Julieta gave a lecture on "Seabirds threats - Improving Conservation".
The last lecture I attended today was another one by Kta about were she works researching whale bones. The name of the place is Estancia Harberton and it's on Tierra del Fuego. They collect samples and the bones from dead sea mammals either washed up on the shore or accidentally caught by fishermen.
There seems to be a cold going around the passengers and I would appear to have caught it.

Last Zodiac Ride

25th January 2016 Part 2
We left the Caldera after lunch and instantly started to pitch and roll. For the first time I started to feel a little unwell so I went for a lie down and slept a little. After a while the pitching and rolling receded and I woke as we arrived at Hannah Point on Livingston Island. Livingston is part of the South Shetland and intact the other side of the island forms the McFarland Strait which is where Half Moon Island is, our first landing.
Which cruise ships visit with place is controlled so that no two ships should turn up at the same place at the same time. That's why when we could not get through the Lemaire Channel Julieta had to email to arrange an alternative. Yesterday when we arrived in Neko there was another ship in our slot, there leader said she thought we had gone else where! It worked out OK as we stopped and watched the whales until they had gone.
So most well known places get two ships a day, but Hannah Point is under stricter control and only gets a ship every three days or so. For this reason the wildlife there is not so confident around people and we had to be extra careful when near them. Only 50 people a time are allowed to land so we were split into two groups, I was in the second group to land after the first had returned to the ship.
Once on land we walked very slowly and in single file around the Penguin colonies. As well as Chinstrap and Gentoo there was a single Macaroni Penguin in amongst the others (Can you see it in the photo). Also on land was a very big number of Elephant Seals which although they looked large were in fact juveniles.
The Penguin chicks here are much further along in their development than those further south. When the chick wants feeding the parent runs away from the chick and the chick runs after it. It's thought that this is to build up strength in the chick. Also because the chicks are larger they are wondering around on their own, so again we have to be that little bit more careful around them.
That's it our last landing of the trip so it's goodbye to the penguins and board the zodiac for the last time to return to the Ushuaia. Now it's time to leave Antarctica and head back across the Drake Passage.

Neptune's Bellows

25th January 2016 Part 1
I was woken in the night with the ship pitching and rolling around, the wind was up and it was snowing. Before breakfast we crossed Neptune's Bellows to enter Deception Island. Deception Island is a dormant volcano whose crater is flooded by the sea, Neptune's Bellows is a 400m wide gap to the open sea. The centre flooded part is called a Caldera and it is 6 miles in diameter. The Caldera was formed when the volcano collapsed during a big eruption, when this occurred is unknown. I watched the crossing of the Bellows from the ships bridge. The bridge has an open policy between 8:00am and 8:00pm. In moments of difficult navigation, like the Bellows, you have to be very quiet whilst the crew work.
Our planned landing for the morning was across the other side of the island, still inside, at a place called Telefun Bay. At the planned time the wind was too strong for zodiac manoeuvres, so it was postponed an hour to see if the wind would drop.
After an hour the wind was still to strong so Kta gave a lecture on Marine mammals and what adaptations had to take place for mammals to return to the sea.
Late in the morning the wind speed inside the Caldera was still to strong to safely operate the zodiacs. This meant the landing on Deception Island was cancelled, it also means that those that were planning on taking a swim in the ice cold water during the landing will miss out.  That's OK with me as I was never planning on doing it. Any activity that means they have to put the ships doctor ashore for safety is an activity I'll not be taking part in.
Before leaving Deception Island to attempt our afternoon landing lunch will be served. The captain had decided not to leave until after lunch as the wind outside the Caldera was 40knts and the rolling of the ship will make eating lunch a difficult and a not pleasant experience.
Let's hope the weather improves for what should be our last landing of the trip. The plan is to land at Hannah Point on Livingston Island. Once we leave the Caldera it will take two hours sailing to get there so the weather could be different, but I don't hold out much hope. BTW the temperature since we arrived in Antarctica has ranged from -1 to +3C. It felt a lot warmer in the sun yesterday and it as also felt a lot colder when in the wind.
Photo shows Jan examining a baleen plate of a juvenile whale in Kta's marine mammal lecture.

BBQ in the Antarctic

24th January 2016
I'm reading a book about Scott And Amundsen (what else would you read in the Antarctic), when last night I came across this passage. "On January 26th [1898] Amundsen landed on an island called Two Hummocks to try his skies". We were next to that island two days ago when we visited Hydrurga Rocks.
This morning we went on a zodiac cruise around the Mechior Islands. The trip took use around the small islands and icebergs. There was Fur, Weddell and Crabeater Seals and for once only a handful of penguins (Gentoo and Chinstrap). I think I have missed my chance to see Adelie Penguins, we should have seen them at Vernadsky but we missed that due to the ice. Apparently there was one on Cuverville Island but I missed it. Part of the Mechior opens out to the Drake Passage so it can get a bit lumpy here, but it seems OK today.
For lunch today we had BBQ beef, chicken and Argentinian sausage. The food was cooked on a large BBQ fixed to the deck of the ship.
This afternoon we had our second landing on the Continent itself. This was at Neko Harbor, which is at the head of Andvord Bay, it has stunning views of mountains and glaciers. Near to Neko we saw some Humpback whale's and a Minke whale. They were resting so we could only see a small part of their body, one however did do a deep dive which meant it's tale came out of the water as it went down.
On land there was a small Gentoo colony with some quite big chicks and a couple of Weddell Seals out of the water resting.
We were able to take a short hike up the side of the glacier, up to about 150m above sea level, which gave fantastic views of the glacier and back along the inlet.
When we are not doing a landing you can go out on the decks to take photos, visit the bridge, but sometimes it's nice to put the camera away and just sit in the lounge drinking tea and watch Antarctica pass by. You may see a whale blow, seals on an ice floe or penguins porpoising.
It always brings a smile to my face if I look out of the cabin window and see penguins porpoising by.
Tomorrow is our last day of activities with two planned landings and then it will be time to take on the Drake once more as we head back to the city of Ushuaia.

The Great White Continent

23rd January 2016 Part 3
For the last part of Plan B we navigated the through Paradise Harbour to landed at a Chilean research station called Videla. The people living at the station live there for a year, even throughout winter. They made us very welcome and we were able to look around their house where we had a drink and biscuits. There's a museum and a gift shop and you can post post cards from the gift shop.
The station is surrounded by a very large number of, yes you guessed it, Gentoo penguins. There was also two female Elephant Seal haled out on the rocks. They are huge animals and I can't imagine how big the males are. Like other places we have visited some of the penguins were sitting on eggs and others had chicks. Since there are no trees and hence no sticks they build the nests out of little stones. These stones are closely guarded, but you see neighbours trying to steal stones off each other. The station had a free WiFi that I was able to connect to. I tried to send a Facebook message and then Twitter message but I don't think they worked. I guess the WiFi is good for the dozen or so people that live there, but when 85 other people turn up tying to use it it grinds to a halt. There was no password for the WiFi, but then who is going to steal it out here? Pingu may be. Post trip note - to my surprise when I was able to log onto the internet the post had worked including the photo.
Oh there is one important thing I forgot to mention. Up to now all our landings have been on islands, but Videla is actually on the Great White Continent itself! In theory you could walk to the South pole from here.

Plan B

23rd January 2016 Part 2
So the revised plan for the morning came through, having arrived at the head of Flanders Bay we are going to take a zodic cruise at 12:00 noon.
Words can't do Flanders Bay justice, it's a spectacular place with high mountains covered in snow and ice. Right at the head of the bay is a glacier and they bay contains a lot of floating ice. From the rear of the boat we saw a Humpback whale. It was a little bit to far away to get a good look at, but we did see it's tale come out the water as it made a dive
From the zodiacs we saw a lot of Crabeater Seals resting on ice flows and a few swimming around. In the sunlight they looked like they were painted gold or silver. The first thing you need to know about Crabeater Seals is that they don't eat crabs, they eat krill! Their name probably was a mistranslation from Norwegian to English. As cold, windy and foggy it was this morning it was as beautiful in the bay this afternoon. There was not much wind and the sun felt really warm.
I'll just take this moment to say how well we are looked after. As well as the expedition staff who tell us about the different animals and go a shore with us, there is the ships staff running the ship and there is the "hotel" staff who prepare the food, serve the food, serve at the bar and clean our cabins. They also make sure with have tea and coffee available all day.
During lunch we saw a couple of really big icebergs pass close by, one of them must have been as big as the ship. We are so lucky to be able to experience this place, especially when you thing that relatively speaking timewise man only knew of this place recently (well only last 200 years). Plus it took a year just to get here.

No Way Through

23rd January 2016 Part 1
Up early this morning for the navigation of the Lemaire Channel. As we entered the channel we lost the sun and it started to snow. The channel has spectacular views on either side of high peaks covered in snow and ice with some rock faces showing through. In the channel there was the odd penguin porpoising and seals on the ice floes. When we have a brief in the evening about the next days activities we are always told this is plan A, but we must be ready to change to plan B, C, D etc. This is the Antarctic and there are no local weather forecasts, just general ones. Well today was the first time that the plan had to change. We got quite a bit down the channel when we found we could not go any further due to it being blocked by ice. So the captain was forced to turn the ship around. On the way back up the channel the sun came out and this gave us a whole new perspective on the scenery. This u-turn means our expedition leader now needs to come up with a plan B.
So while plan B is being formulated we sailed north along the peninsula with truly spectacular views. We saw a couple of whale plumes off in the distance.
Now that the ice has blocked our path I think that's the farthest south we will go. It's a shame we will not get to the Ukrainian station, but now we have been beaten back by ice we are now true polar explorers.

There is always someone!

22nd January 2016 Part 2
Whilst navigating the Gerlache Straight this afternoon we spotted a sailing  yacht. No matter what adventure you do there is always someone that will push it further.
When we reached Cuverville Island it was a little too windy for the zodiacs so we waited half an hour while the captain found a suitable place to launch from.
When you go ashore and return to the ship you disinfect and clean your boots, trekking poles and camera tripods. This is not only to stop us moving seeds and bugs from one place to another but to clean off the penguin poop you pick up on your boots
So for this afternoon on Cuverville Island the penguin of the day was Gentoo's, again 1000s of them. We did see a Skua raid the rockery and come out with a penguin egg. It was just one of those things that happen in nature, it was nothing to do with us being there.
We could see lots of penguins porpoising in the sea around the island.
On the return to the ship the zodiacs did not take the direct route as we went on a little bit of a tour around some icebergs. On one of the floes there was a seal resting, I think it was a Leopard Seal but I need to check with the guides as our zodiac driver did not speak English.
Confirmation from the guides that it was a Leopard Seal. Along with Orca's Leopard Seals are the top predator in the Antarctic. It was probably sleeping on the ice floe having had its fill of Gentoo's!
Tomorrows plan is to be up early as we expect to start navigating the Lemaire Channel at 7:00am. This channel is about 9km long but only 600m wide. After breakfast the plan is to land at Peterman Island. Here we should see more Gentoo and our first Adelie Penguins. Also there should be the possibility to see Blue Eyed Shags. The Adelies are more skittish than Chinstraps and Gentoo's so we will have to be even more careful around them.
For the afternoon landing it is hoped that we can visit Vernadsky Station which is now a Ukraine research station but was formally the UK Faraday Station. This is where the hole in the ozone was first discovered. We will also visit Wordie House, Base F of the Tabavian Operations from the UK during World War II. Of course this is all weather dependent.