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Photo Galleries Home Gallery: 8-Landings in Antarctica-Brown Bluff (271) Event Code: 12172011
(December 17th, 2011) L’AUSTRAL Daily Journal - Antarctic Sound & Weddell Sea. By Simon Cook/br>After we left Mikkelsen Harbour yesterday the wind increased significantly and developed into a violent storm – force 11 on the Beaufort scale; with a wind speed of up to 65 knots and waves up to 13 feet high. The ship rolled a lot during the night; so much, in fact, that those of us who didn’t have anyone to hold onto found out the true meaning of the phrase ‘poetry in motion’./br> A glance outside this morning was enough to cause blindness. Something incredibly and unbelievably bright was shining from the sky; some said it was the sun but after so many days of unremitting greyness it was hard to believe! The sky was absolutely cloudless but the strong wind was still generating waves, whitecaps and streaks of spray across the surface of the water. On our starboard side, we could see the northern tip of the continent; mountains, icefields and sunshine glaciers. We were in the Antarctic Sound and icebergs were all around. The Captain very carefully took us past, around and between these impressive objects. Many were tabular and some were tilted at an angle, showing that calving and melting had shifted their centre of gravity. Away in the distance some bright orange huts revealed the location of a large Argentinian base called Esperanza. Continuing south, the sea got calmer and calmer and the wind dropped too. The Captain took the ship into a channel called Fridtjof Sound – the gateway to the Weddell Sea, which lay to the south. There were many more icebergs here, in addition to much brash ice. Off in the distance lay a huge sheet of ice so the captain headed over to it to check out blobs spotted by the naturalists. When we got close they turned out to be giant-petrels and adélie penguins, the first close views of the latter for many of us. The ice was melting rapidly and several streams cascaded over the edge into the sea. Heading back north again through the same sound took us quickly to Brown Bluff, the remains of an ancient volcano. The boats were soon lowered but there was something missing from the boat ride – no big waves and no repeated showers of spray, but we managed to cope! High, brown cliffs glowed in the sun and just behind the beach were many penguins. Once we were ashore there were several choices and one of the most popular was to climb a little way up the nearby glacial moraine for a superb overview of the area. Some were lucky enough to see a huge section of ice fall away from the nearby glacier. The beach itself was studded with blocks of ice that had been stranded by the falling tide. Walking east took us to the penguin nesting areas and there were a few kelp gulls around too. Gentoo penguins had quite large chicks that were being brooded very tenderly by the adults and occasionally we saw the little ones being fed. Further along the beach was the western end of the huge adélie-penguin nesting area. They could be seen disappearing into the distance and they even went up the steep slopes above the beach. In the water, there was at least one leopard seal and the result of their predation was evidenced by several injured birds ashore. However, on the plus side, many of Adélie penguins had tiny chicks that had us enthralled and their parents were just as tender and careful as the Gentoos. To see all this new life entering the world was a privilege.
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