Land Ahead

We have sailed overnight from the West Falkland island of New Island. We made a wet landing on the lea side of a ship wrecked nineteenth century wooden sealer on New Island in the early afternoon.



The wind was howling as we began our hike uphill across the island. The wind whipped sand and black dust stung our faces as we hiked into the stiffening breeze. At times we were forced to stop walking and simply lean into the wind to avoid being knocked down. We hiked up a wide grassy valley flanked by two large hills. The grass was thick and lush and full of upland geese. The geese looked like weather vanes pointed dead into the wind. The trail led to a rocky promitory overlooking the South Atlantic that serves as a rookery for rock hopper penguins, black browsed albatross, and shags.






The wind became violent as we approached the cliffs. Feathers from all the birds and the molting penguins swirled everywhere. The constant winds were reinforced with gusts over 70 miles per hour. We were forced to sit down in order to steady our cameras.

The skuas would pair up and hover stationary just over the nests of shags and penguins. One skua would distract the parent allowing the second to swoop down and attempt to force the chick over the cliff. The drama was repeated all along the edge of the rookery. The neighboring birds would ignore the life and death saga occurring within feet or, in some cases, inches as a chick would struggle for life. The albatross are the main attraction in the rookery and are amazing to watch. They would struggle against the wind to the cliff edge and, at just the right condition, would launch themselves into space. The wind would carry them screaming back above the cliff edge where they would remain stationary in the air above our heads before wheeling into the wind and out to sea. The landings were dramatic. The albatross, upon return from feeding in the ocean, would hover above their nest before flaring out in an attempt to reach terra firma only to be blown back into the air. They would circle back over the Atlantic and repeat the attempted landing. This often took multiple attempts.



The shags were more comical to observe. They would drop in and attempt to hover using their large webbed feet as air brakes and flaps. Their feet would be all askew with wings contorted in opposite directions in an attempt to safely negotiate a landing. Their success rate was even less than the majestic albatross.

We are just now rounding the Cape of Good Success and should be docked in Ushuaia this afternoon. We are surrounded by Black Browed Albatross and Giant Southern Petrels. They have escorted us through the night from the Falklands.

Tomorrow we have a charter flight to Buenos Aires and a ten o'clock flight to Houston that evening.



The albatross is on the right with the petrel in front.


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Location:Lemaire Straits

Falklands

We are sailing through the Falkland's on route to our final stop. We spent yesterday in Stanley, an interesting town and interesting characters. The town is small, 2,100 residents, with narrow streets crammed with small, pre-fabricated houses tucked in behind the hundred year old original homes made of tin. Many of the homes still use peat for cooking and heating. The peat is free. There is a peat commissioner that assigns each family a peat plot where they dig, cut, and dry the peat. There are no indigenous trees due to the constant strong winds on the island but people have planted many trees in their yards or, gardens. The arrangement of buildings, shrubs, and trees are all planned with the wind in mind. The islands are a windswept, rocky, barren place.


The 1982 conflict with Argentina is still fresh on the islanders minds and the topic of many of our conversation with the islanders. There is now a large military base on East Falklands and there are signs around many/most of the beaches warning of land mines and un-exploded ordinance. The Argentines mined all the beaches and only a few have been cleared. The locals show little concern. The occasional blown up cow does not appear to bother them.


The magellanic penguins are too light to to trip the mines but I guess the presence of the mines could explain the lack of seals along the beaches.


Stanley is famous for all the ship wrecks in and around its port. Before the Panama Canal, all ships had to round Cape Horn. The first port is Stanley and many of the ships were too battered to continue and, with no trees in the islands, there was no way to repair the damage.


The Lady Elizabeth was launched in 1879 and ended up here in 1913 after being damaged rounding the Cape.


We sailed over night to Carcass Island. A small island in the west Falkland Islands. Carcass Island is a private island and is a farm. We anchored in a large cove just offshore from the farm house and out buildings. The island is a birders paradise. We explored along the coast for a bit and then walked to the farm house for tea. We had an amazing array of sweets, breads, cakes, and cookies. While loading the zodiacs, Paula and I saw a beautiful black and white porpoise playing around the zodiac. A good morning. We are now sailing to our final landing before returning to Ushuaia.


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Location:Falkland Islands, South Atlantic Ocean

Sailing the Southern Seas

Looking back at the blog I realize there is little chronological order in the postings. I have been a poor reporter. In my defense, the experiences have been overwhelming and, at times, difficult to reduce to simple words or sentences. The photographs help express the immensity, beauty, and desolation of our southern oceans but even the photographs cannot express or convey our feelings of wonderment and awe that we have experienced over the past weeks. It is hard to fathom an entire continent that is for all practical matters uninhabited and, for the most part, unexplored. Mountain ranges that have never been climbed and vast plateaus that have never been crossed. We have been fortunate to touch a small part of this vast continent. Our push south through the Lemaire Channel and on through Crystal Sound in an attempt to cross the Antarctic Circle represented, in a small way, the history of exploration on this continent. We came close but, even with our modern ship, we were turned away by ice even as our goal was in site. An incredible experience. Our adventure did not stop there. We sailed around the tip of the peninsula and into the Weddell Sea only to be rebuffed again by pack ice and ice bergs. I will never forget the sound of the hull cleaving through the pack ice or the way the ship shuddered and groaned as it slammed itself into thicker slabs. The crab eater seals barely stirred to mark our temporary presence in their realm.



Turned back again, we followed Shackleton's desperate route to Elephant Island. Beautiful in its harsh severity. Again, we were more than lucky to make a landing. There is only a two percent chance of making a landing on this jagged rock of land. It is beyond my imagination how that small group of men could survive for one hundred days without giving up all hope and the relief and joy they must have experienced when the "Boss" Shackleton returned for them.




From there we sailed in two days what took sixteen for Shackleton. South Georgia Island, isolated in the Antarctic Ocean south of the convergence, is amazingly diverse. We sunned amongst the tussock grass and watched seal pups play and albatross feed their chicks in one cove and fought for warmth and shelter from furious wind and sleet in the next. We circled and back tracked around the island for five days and were accompanied by vast swarms of seals, sea birds and penguins. Never did we expect to encounter the huge numbers of animals. In many places it was difficult to walk due to the density of seals, penguins, and sea birds along the shoreline. Life and death played out both ashore where the skuas and giant petrels are ever alert for an untended chick or egg and in the surf patrolled by the reptilian looking leopard seal gorging on inexperienced penguin chicks. Luckily, only one of our party was bitten by a fur seal.


We have another day at sea before reaching the Falkland Islands. So far we have been accompanied by fin whales with their geyser like spouts, wandering albatross with eleven foot wing spans, and giant petrels with their large hooked beaks.

I wish I could share more photographs and videos but the Internet is too limited.


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Location:At Sea 600 Miles East of the Falklands

King Haakon Bay

Fun morning. We awoke to misty, sleety weather as we sailed into King Haakon Bay. We were surrounded by Wandering albatross, Giant petrels, Skuas, Light Mantled Sooty albatross, and many others. The Wandering Albatross is the largest bird in the world and is spectacular to watch.



We sailed into the bay and anchored off of Peggoty Point where Shackleton overturned the James Caird for the three men he was left behind and hiked across South Georgia to the whaling station at Grytviken.

We bundled up and insured we were waterproof before setting out for a very wet landing on a small, gravely beach below a massive hanging glacier.



The wind was ferocious and we quickly assembled on the lee side of the point to get our bearings. The captain later told us the winds were gusting to sixty miles per hour. From there we took a short hike through the tussock grass and across glacial moraines. The wind gusts were enough to push us backwards and the rain, sleet, and blowing snow stung any exposed flesh on our faces.

The real fun started when we re-boarded the zodiacs. The winds and seas were running directly into the small gravel spit we launched from. Waves crashed over the stern soaking everything before we could turn into the seas. I was fortunate to have the quartering seas to my back, Paula was across from me and took the water face on. It was hard to distinguish between sleet and sea spray except by taste. Disembarking from the zodiacs onto the the rolling ship was an adventure in its own right. The good news is that we now have proof that our water proof gear is truly water proof. Other than our faces,we stayed dry. At lunch we learned that a woman from Canada froze and had to be lifted out of the pitching zodiac.

From Peggoty Point we sailed to the mouth of King Haakon Bay to Point Rosa where Shackleton made his initial landing on South Georgia. Shackleton had spotted the island the day before but a hurricane struck and threatened to smash the James Caird into the rocky cliffs. They were able to circle back to sea and survived the night. The next day the skies cleared and Shackleton sailed into King Haakon Bay. They had been at sea in the twenty two foot for sixteen days, the last three days without water. They found this small cove at the opening to the bay.



The beached on the small beach in the center of the photo. There is a small stream behind the point to the left. They found albatross chichs on the cliffs for food. As they beached the James Caird, they lost the rudder which was devastating. The next day, the rudder washed back onto their small beach allowing them to sail to Peggoty point.

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Location:South Georgia Island