1-31 Antartica (day 1)

1-31 Day 26 Antarctica (day 1)

The day so many of us have been waiting for – our arrival to Antarctica. It started early, as will the next two days in this area, around 6:30. Our time here will be around the Antarctic peninsula which is the northern part of the continent. We entered in the Wilhelm Archipelago. The first island I saw on port side was Anvers Island. At first the mountain top was covered by clouds, but in a while it cleared and we could see the whole mountain. It was stunning. We also saw some smaller icebergs on both sides of the ship.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and we were most fortunate. 80% of the time it is cloudy. It was cold and windy most of the day, but the sun helped a lot. I was on Deck 9 to start with and had my first whale sighting. There was a group of whales that were spouting. We could only see their spouts. Then as I went to the other side of the ship, I lucked into seeing a whale close to the ship swimming for a minute before diving (which let us see his whole tail.) I hope my pictures came out!!!

The USA has three stations in Antarctica. One is on the southern part of Anvers Island and is called Palmer Station. We were lucky enough to have about 16 of their staff come to our ship for about half a day. They came in two zodiac boats – it was many miles for them to travel. We have great pictures of their coming across to our ship and coming along side to disembark. After they got settled on board, we headed out into the Bismarck Straits for Lemaire Channel. The staff mingled among the passengers describing a little about what they do, how long they've been there, etc. What struck us was how young they were and how nice and friendly they were as well.

On our way to Lemaire Channel we had the opportunity to see many icebergs and glacier covered granite mountains. We took LOTS of pictures. On one floating iceberg, we saw a lone crabeater seal. It is one of the species that is found here. He was asleep and then lifted his head, turned as if to check us out, and then went back to sleep. What a treat to see him.

Lemaire Channel is really tricky because it is so narrow and is often clogged with ice so that boats cannot get through from one end to the other. Our captain took a great deal of time to determine whether or not we could make it. We ended up going part of the way into the channel before it got too narrow to turn around because of ice at the other end and lots of floating icebergs in the passage (some from a very recent calving) We had two big mountains of ice on either side of us. The memorable thing about going through this channel was seeing penguins on one side. They were far enough way you could only make them out with binoculars. You are able to spot them from where they come out of the water and upon onto the snow because they leave a trail of “poop,” and depending upon what they ate determines the color. This group had eaten krill and the result was red. We followed their trail and then saw many penguins waddling up the mountain side to their nests (which we couldn't see). It was quite a sight.

While we retraced our steps out of the channel and then back to Palmer Station, the staff gave us a presentation of what the USA is doing there and the many studies they are conducting. The evidence of global warming is having a huge effect on the wildlife population as well as the loss of land mass. They reported that in one year, the land around Palmer Station shrunk by 30 feet. This year they are seeing fewer whales. Also, a special Antarctic penguin (Adelie) are moving out of the Antarctic area because they need a colder climate and it is getting too warm where they had been. The other interesting thing was how much info they are getting from sea life mainly that is helping to come up with new medical treatments for different types of cancer. The bottom line was just how important this area is to the world and how important the scientific studies are.

Before the staff left, they let us know what a treat it was for them to come on board our ship. Some got haircuts, others enjoyed sushi, and some left with gourmet coffee! I think it was very mutual since all the passengers seemed to not only enjoy their presentation, but also to be able to just talk to them informally as they walked about on deck.

The ship's crew was great during our time outside on deck – we were served hot chocolate in the morning and later the best split pea soup I've ever had (maybe anything warm would have tasted wonderful!) Many of us kept coming inside to warm up for a bit (and to warm up our cameras), and then as soon as we could, head back out on deck to get the best views. Also, many were in the Crow's Nest where you could watch while staying warm. But to really see the animals the best, you needed to be outside and usually on a lower deck. The negative was the strong winds that made it hard to keep your camera steady while trying to snap pictures.

Took a break for lunch while we were retracing our way back to Palmer Station and then did much of the same for the rest of the afternoon. The journey continued from the Bismark Strait up into the Neumayer Channel that had all kinds of twists and turns. You thought you were coming to a deadend when all of a sudden, you could see an opening as you got closer. This happened a couple of times. One little area we saw in passing was Port Lockroy where about 8 people live year round. They have a post office and a gift shop. Only smaller vessels can get into the bay there, but we were able to see some of the buildings (again, with binoculars) and some of the masts of sailboats anchored there. Our guide/narrator said there was a colony of Gentoo penguins along the shore there, but I don't think anyone could see them. The thing everyone did see was a sailboat outside of the bay in the channel sailing along as if it were a warm day (it was around 30 degrees). While we were huddled up in a large ship, we were amazed someone could be out doing that.

After leaving Neumayer Channel, we were in the De Gerlache Strait. It is pretty wide in many areas and is an easy access into more open waters. Our captain is going to spend the dark hours of the night running the ship back and forth in the open waters until it is light and then will head back down this strait to our next stops for tomorrow. In order to purify the water needed on the ship, it takes the engines running at high speed for a certain amount of time. Because we were going very slowly today around icebergs, etc. we need the night run of the engines.

To hopefully be able to see whales, we need to be out of deck at 6 a.m. tomorrow. It will be a great day as we hope to see a lot of animal life tomorrow. The sun doesn't set until after 10 p.m. now and the sunrise is around 4:30 a.m. Really long daylight hours – but great ability to see all the ice mountains around us. We are back in our cabin for the night. We have no sattelite signal, so no CNN or any TV station to keep us in touch with the outside world. Don't know when I'll be able to send this entry off.

Looking forward to day 2 in Antarctica!