We are in the middle of 4 days cruising the coasts of Antartica. The first two days have been along the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Today we are in the South Shetland Islands.
The first day was overcast, with the cloud ceiling a few hundred feet above the ship, luminous and gray. We see icebergs of all sizes sculpted into fantastic shapes by the strong winds. There are large glaciers slowly gliding into the sea from the rocky snow-covered mountains on the shores of the mainland and the islands. Snow-covered cliffs disappear into the gray limitless sky. Occasionally there is a break in the gray allowing us to see some of the peaks beyond the shore. Antarctica broke off from the southern tip of South America, and the mountains we see are part of the Andes. We see whales and birds. The humpback whales we see are "logging." Although they are right next to the ship, all that is visible is their dorsal fin, which looks like a log on the water. The whales are here to feed on the Krill, and bulk-up for the trip north to their breeding grounds near the equator, opposite Ecuador. By the afternoon of the first day, snow begins to fall--so our view of the continent disappears behind a curtain of white. I guess we didn't escape the snow this winter after all. We cruise through Dalman Bay, Whilemena Bay, the Errera Channel, and Paradise Harbor. A quote by T.L.M. Sunter, a sea captain, in a guidebook provided by the ship summarized well what we are seeing: "....an unparalleled combination of grandeur, beauty, vastness, loneliness and malevolence...."
Antarctica, the size of the continental United States and Mexico together, is the highest continent on earth, due to the accumulation of snow. The center of this continent is the driest place on earth, but we won't visit there. We are cruising only the most accessible coastline. The second day is sunny and we see what we missed the first day. We are visited by 12 members from the United States' Palmer Station, one of three research stations the US maintains in Antartica. We have a briefing from the Station Chief, and a Q&A session with the team members. The station is part of the National Science Foundation's programs. For those who are interested, their web address is www.usap.gov. Some members of the team have been at all the US sites over the years. If the station at the pole had a tee shirt, one of them wisecracked, it would read "Ski Antartica: two inches of powder, over two miles of base." Under the snow base is the rocky continent of Antartica, compressed to about 300 feet high by the weight of 2 miles of snow. The team leaves in their inflatable Zodiac boats. Palmer station has less than 50 people during the research period--the Southern Hemisphere summer months. The South Pole is an excellent place for research, even particle physics. There is a study to detect neutrinos, the very small particles that pass through the earth, using holes drilled at the South and North Poles (to capture the particle's comings and goings.)
The largest terrestrial animal in Antartica is the wingless fly, about 4 cm in size. The larger animals, penguins, seals, whales, etc. spend most of their time in the water. There is an Antarctic ice fish, which has no hemoglobin; its blood is clear, not red. Most animals here have an antifreeze-like substance in their blood which stops internal ice from forming. Factoid learned yesterday during an hour-long lecture on penguins: they don't have short legs at all; instead, their legs are encased with skin and waterproof feathers down to their ankles, like harem pants, so their bodies stay warm while swimming.
We cruise by several Gentoo penguin colonies and are warned about the smell--but we don't detect that smell from indoors. The sights are lovely, with long days to allow for maximal enjoyment. The sun rises at about 4:30 am and sets at 10:27 pm. Sumner and Alice have drinks in the Crow's Nest watching the sun set while listening to Bert Bacharach (sp?) tunes on the piano.
We are currently on our way to the Antarctic Sound, which will have spectacular views, if the weather holds--and perhaps more whale sightings too. We expect one more day in the South Shetlands before we leave for the Falkland (Malvinas if you're Argentinian) Islands.
The outdoor temperatures are just above freezing; passengers willing to brave walking the decks in mid-morning are being treated to hot and hearty soups. A good number of people have colds or have been seasick (when the winds are high, bags for this purpose are attached to stair railings). We overhear occasional grousing by some passengers who think we are spending too much time cruising this gorgeous cold and barren scenery, but in the main the passengers, like us, are fascinated with this astonishing and very foreign place. We often wish we could look things up online to learn more--but alas, we can't do that. We are now at Day 29 of being without access to the Internet, with the exception of the few minutes needed to post these chapters to the blog. If we tried to include photos, this uploading process could take hours. Today in the library, Alice overheard a woman complain to her husband that she had paid for 20 minutes of satellite connection time to access one website that still had not loaded. But our 29-day regime of Internet isolation pales so much with the isolation of the many explorers to this region of years past who suffered enormously, often without even having sunshine with which to get their bearings. Now, at least, the ships traveling here have sonar and other navigational methods to allow us to wend our way safely through daunting icebergs as we navigate strong waves of 20 to 25 knots.
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