Penguins, Icebergs, "beached white whales" and whale bones

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Gorgeous glacier that we sailed by...

Viewing Bailey Head from the ship.

We arrived at Deception Island!  The “island” is actually a caldera (the ridge of a volcano that has ruptured and filled with water).  Jordi always goes over the plans for the day (and sometimes the next day) and has a plan A and a plan B!  Plan A was to go the normal route into the protected inside area.  But if the conditions were good (translate “calm”) enough, we would land at Bailey Head on the outer part of DI!  He has been coming to DI for 6 years with the Europa, and has not ever been able to land there.  Well:  the weather was with us!!  It was calm (although according to Jordi, “calm is never calm” because of large swells) and we were able to anchor and take the zodiacs to shore!  The steep shore was all pebbles and actually not a difficult landing!

Some telephoto... is that a dusting of snow on the hills?  Uh, no.  Those are penguins... lots and lots and lots of penguins.

See?!?!?  They are everywhere!!!

The amazing thing about Bailey Head is that it is home to the largest colony of Chin Strap Penguin colonies in the southern hemisphere… about 80,000 (yes, that is 80 thousand) PAIRS of penguins (down from about 100,000) !!!  There are penguins everywhere!!!!!   On the beaches, up the valleys, on rocky outcrops and up the mountains!!!  Any black and white dot: penguins!  They even have a super highway!  There are lanes of birds marching to the beach and lanes of birds marching back to their nests.  A few stragglers going the wrong way, or completely stopped… like any commute!  So amazing to watch!

Bark Europa!

This penguin found a great spot for a nest!

Got a stone to add to the nest...

Who is more interested in whom?

We carefully passed by the highway and trekked back into the valley then up to a cliff top.  Goggling at penguins all along the way.  There were goggling at us as well!

Nesting on the ice.  This is very rare.

Penguins hold out their wings to cool off.   They get very hot in the sun.

Outa my way, got to get this stone to the nest.

We are on top of a high ridge looking down to the bay at this beautiful iceberg.  It is gorgeous above and below the water.

Wow!  There is a leopard seal down there!

Once we were up on the top of the ridge, we could look down, down, down into a beautiful bay, with lots of… penguins!  (How did you guess?!?!)  There was also a large iceberg… with a leopard seal!  Uh oh.   Sure enough, we saw him catch a penguin.  The seal played around with the penguin, tossing it around, letting it go, grabbing it again… a lot like a domestic cat playing with a mouse.  The penguin actually got away (probably actually let go…) and swam to shore!!  Hurrah!  Only to be grabbed by a giant petrel… and consumed.  Dang.  Poor penguin.  That is nature for you.

 We trekked back to the beach, still totally enthralled with the incredible numbers of penguins.  Some eggs had rolled from nests and were lying abandoned.

  There was a penguin sitting on a chick out in the open, the chick must have somehow rolled out of the nest so the parents continued to take care of it where it landed!  Not the safest place, but hopefully they will be successful. 

The chick must have rolled out of the nest, so the parent is protecting it out in the open.

Saw several squabbles!  Sometimes those penguins can be very harsh with each other!  Some were gathering stones for the nests.  And the entire time the birds are talking about something!  They talk and talk and talk!

Carefully skirted the penguin highway to get back to the beach.  Took the zodiacs back to Europa.  Still “calm”!  LOL!!

While motoring through the narrow passage to our next stop, Heidi and I climbed out on the bowsprit (the point out on the bow of the boat) and had an amazing view!  We are harnessed in and there is netting that we walk on then we can sit on the boom (I am sure that is not the correct term…) and watch the world go by!  It got cold, but it was worth it!  I will plan on going out there more on this trip!

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View of the ship from the bowsprit!

In preparation for our next stop in Pendulum Cove, many of us put on our bathing suits (!!) under our multiple layers of clothing.  WHAT???  Yep, we did!  Pendulum Cove was the location of a Chilean research station that was wiped out by a volcano.  We visited the (very little) remains of the station, then walked around the edge of the beach to see some of the glacier and soil combinations.  Get interesting formations from the different rates of ice melting.

Steam rising on the beach from the fumaroles.

Annukka digging a hole to get the hot water.

Walking through the steam!

All that was left of the Chilean research station... after the volcanic eruption.

There is that beautiful Bark.  She almost looks like a ghost ship!

 Then:  Da da da dah!  We peeled out of our clothes and went swimming in Antarctica!!!  The fumaroles (which are geothermal activity from the magma chamber deep in the active volcano) cause steam to come up through the pebbles and heat the water along the shoreline.  It is super warm, we dug holes into the sand to get pools of water (some of it very hot!) and let it flow into the water. 

  We got a bit warm, then jumped out into the colder water (I did not go into the super cold water!) then back into the warm water!  It was a blast!  Those folks that did not go into the water took lots of photos.  Including a penguins checking out all the “beached white whales”!!!  Fantastic!

After trying to rinse off all the pebbles (not quite successful) we had to brave the cold air to get back into our layers of clothing.  That was a feat, and a comedy, of its own!!  Ask anybody that saw Dr Bob!!  Once dressed, we were quite warm, the soaking in the hot water warmed us to the core.  Aaaahhhh, nice!

Sunbathing seal!

So many different colored rocks!

Back into the zodiacs to return to the Europa.  Ready for dinner, then another activity! 

The Europa was anchored in Whalers Bay and we went ashore for some history and hiking.  The remains for the site where whales were processed to collect their oil during the big whaling days late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  Hard to imagine what went on there. 

tanks for storing whale oil.

  After exploring the ruins (“walk around only, stay out of the buildings”) we hiked up to another ridge to see the nesting birds and incredible views of the sea.  Then trek back down to the beach to be off the land by 10pm. 

With it so light, the days so long, it is difficult to go back.  But it is also difficult to get some rest, because you want to see and do everything!  Having some stimulation overload going on!

old whale bones

water boat

view from the top

view from the top looking back to Whaler's Cove.

Well, if that wasn’t enough for the day…. The New Years party was going strong!  Folks visited and drank and listened to music (Emma was a super DJ!) and kissed a lot (in Holland everybody gives three kisses) and had a great time until early in the am.  Quite the shindig!!

Good bye 2015!  It has been a fantastic year!

Stacy, Vet at Sea