7. Gerlache Strait and Cuverville Island 64°21'11" S 61°28'28" W Fields Of Ice, Shipwrecks And Whales

This day, February 16th would be one of the highlights of a trip that was filled with extraordinary events. We started navigating the Gerlache Strait. The amount of ice floating around us was increasing dramatically, the scenery left us literally speechless for hours.

One of the most memorable experiences was that nobody said a word or was just whispering. Everyone was deeply impressed by the beauty surrounding. Nature can be truly astounding.

It was really hard to get into the deck house to get something to eat or drink, you just did not want to leave the deck.

Just when lunch was being ready to be served, whales were spotted, sleeping whales to be exactly. When at the beginning of our trip we were instructed to on the lookout of sleeping whales nobody of us knew how that would look like and here was our answer, some big logs, like treetrunks remaining stationary.
The two Humpback whales eventually woke up and would remain with us for maybe 3 quarters of an hour. They seemed to enjoy us as much as we enjoyed them, rolling around next to the ship, spyhopping to get the better view of us, one jumped out of the water.

Unfortunately I ran out of batteries and memory on both my cameras, I had always spares with me, but today I had changed jumpers and I forgot all the spares were within that jumper, so instead of directly running to get this, I decided to first take in what was happening around us, choosing to look through my eyes instead of through a lens. The water was exceptionally clear and we could see the whole animal through the water. And yes they are huge, but without anything familiar to compare the size I did not have the feeling I was looking at animals as big as a freight truck. Quite often I had to remind myself about the sizes of what we saw, be it whales, icewalls or icebergs, it is difficult to get a feeling of the in an environment that is totally devoid of recognizable human habitation.

After this lunchbreak we continued and met the remains of an an old whaling ship, the Gouvernøren, that stranded here in 1916 and is now a monument to these days past. Nowadays with the Antarctic Treaty in place if anything would happen, the government under which the ship sails is held responsible to salvage everything left behind fortunately. It helps reminding you though that as breathtaking the environment is, this can also be a dangerous place.

The day was not over yet, late in the afternoon we arrived at Cuverville Island where we would land and take another tour visiting a really large Gentoo penguin colony. Compared to the first two colonies we visited this was different because there was less rock and more ice all around the island.
This was truly a memorable day.

This album here has pictures of the Gerlache Strait, Icebergs and Ice floes, a Crabeater Seal, Humpback Whales,the Gouvernøren shipwreck and the Bark Europa.
It has 69 pictures.

click here for the album



This album here has pictures of Cuverville Island, Gentoo Penguins, a Skua and the Bark Europa.
It has 24 pictures.

click here for the album


A part of this video was shot this day:

9. Lemaire Channel and Penola Strait 65°15'17" S 64°17'56" W Icefields And Many Seals

I woke up a bit late, still feeling the cold night before, when we were approaching the Lemaire Channel, which is supposed to be the photographic highlight of the Antarctic Peninsula. When arriving a fierce storm was blowing (9 Bft.), the sky was ominous and it was made clear again that despite all the beauty, this is not an environment meant for us.

 After a while the wind was receding and we were looking at the entrance of the Penola Strait, a small channel between 1000 meter high straight mountains. However, the Strait looked to be blocked by ice.

This year the Europa had not managed yet to reach it's most southern destination, the Ukrainian base Vernadsky, with ice blocking the passage. In fact only two ships had managed it this season yet.
So we were all a bit anxious to see what would happen next.
With lookouts high in the mast and upfront at the stern the captain decided to give it a go.



What pictures do not show is sound. And the sound crossing these icefields with everything cracking around you is something not to forget. At a certain point the captain asked everyone to leave the deck in front to have a better view so that we could make a safe passage.

When the channel widened up again the weather changed entirely and it would turn out to be a beautiful sunny day. We encountered Crab Seals resting on floating icefloes, at first we thought we were lucky but they were literally everywhere. We also saw a penguin taking risks by just walking next to a Leopard Seal. Or he was suicidal or he did not know that he was not the top of the food chain.




Reaching our destination we met more dramatically shaped icebergs and with the sun blazing, the colors were again of unparalleled beauty.



This album here has pictures of the Lemaire Channel and Penola Strait, Icebergs, Glaciers, Icefloes, the Captain, Crabeater Seals, Leopard Seals, Porpoising Penguins and the Bark Europa.
It has 64 pictures.

click here for the album












This video was mainly filmed the last few days:

11. Petermann Island 65°10'0" S 64°10'0" W Gentoo and Adelie Penguins

On the 19th of February we would first go a little bit more south to reach our most southern location at 65°16'9" S 64°16'17" W. After that we slowly sailed north again and our first stop would be Petermann Island, home of Adelie penguins, a species that we had not encountered before.



Those penguins start their breeding seasons a lot earlier though, this being more southern, the winter will also start earlier so they need to have an early start and most were already gone, but we managed to see a few.

A freshwater pool was a popular bathing spot for Skuas. It remains puzzling to see how penguins and those scavengers just stand close to each other at his pool but otherwise they are enemies.


We had several hours here to walk around on this ice covered island, once again I admired the stubbornness of penguins, seeing them climbing through the ice and rocks to go to their nesting place.

This album here has pictures of Petermann Island, Gentoo and Adelie Penguins, Skuas, Icebergs and the Bark Europa.
It has 57 pictures.

click here for the album







Penguins can be funny as we all know:

12. Penola Strait and Peltier Channel 65°10'0" S 64°6'60" W Back North Again

After our visit to Petermann Island we would head up north again, backtracking a bit of our route through the Penola Strait and Lemaire Channel to head up to Port Lockroy, passing through the Peltier Channel.

Circumstances were completely different from the day before. The sky was clear, the sea was smooth, it was great to see this again in this changed weather.



We were lucky enough to see more whales and in the afternoon the setting sun again showed us how magical this place can be.

This album here has pictures of The Lemaire Channel, Penola Strait and Peltier Channel, a whale and the Bark Europa.
It has 18 pictures.

click here for the album

14. Neumayer and Schollaert Channel 64°47'26" S 63°8'21" W An Ice Spinx and Whales In A Golden Sunset

In the afternoon of the 21st of February we sailed again northwards, through the Neumayer and Schollaert Channel. The last days we were really lucky with the weather and this was no exception.










We passed along many icebergs, one remarkably shaped like a sphinx.













At the end of the afternoon we heard a familar shout: "whales!"
A small group of Humpback whales were around giving us a proper farewell. Though they remained at a distance, it was a stunning sight with the golden light of th late afternoon.
When they seemed to have left and I returned to do some work at my netbook, the shouts came again. And this repeated itself several times until I finally had a kind of overload and decided to try to finish some sorting of my pictures. Of course that was when they started to jump...

This album here has pictures of the Neumayer and Schollaert Channel, Icebergs, Whales and the Bark Europa.
It has 31 pictures.

click here for the album

15. Melchior Islands 64°19'21" S 63°0'6" W Fur Seals And Ice At our Last Day On Antarctica

This day would be the last day at Antarctica before heading towards the Drake Passage and South America again. I rose up early, to see a last sunrise here, which was worth the effort, colors were changing from blue to pink and it was all quiet around.



We had our hopes high to have a chance encounter with Killer Whales, more or less the last animal that everybody hoped to see but that we had not seen so far, but that would not happen.


This was our last 'tourist stop', we would make a little tour with the zodiacs and sloopy across the labyrinth of small channels.









Penguins were no longer around, so it felt already like we had left a bit, but Fur Seals made our farewell a worthy one.



This album here has pictures of the Melchior Islands, Icebergs and Glaciers, Fur Seals and the Bark Europa.
It has 24 pictures.

click here for the album