Antarctica: A Day on the Water

This post is going to be a short one. (Thank goodness, because tomorrow's is going to be a doozy!)

There also won't be many pictures in this one. I had a few cameras with me on the trip—my good digital SLR, a decent point-and-shoot, and a waterproof camera—and I mostly used the latter when kayaking. It was so convenient because I could clip it to me PFD and let it sit on my spray skirt without worrying that it was covered in water. I would also bring my point-and-shoot in my dry bag, but it's a bit of a hassle hauling that out and putting it back in so I only used it when I saw something I wanted a higher quality picture of. (I never took my digital SLR in the kayaks because I was too paranoid about dropping it in the water.)

So the reason for the fewer pictures is because when we were kayaking, we were paddling most of the time. We didn't usually stop to take pictures unless we wanted a bit of a break or we saw something really special. The other reason is because my waterproof camera doesn't have an optical viewfinder, and it was REALLY hard to see the image in the LCD because of the glare, so I'd often just point the camera in the general direction of what I was trying to capture. As a result, a rather high proportion of the shots I did take were completely unusable (not straight, missing half of the main subject, etc.)

Anyway, after we had a bit of a chance to rest up from our night of camping, we met with Jamie and Louise to discuss the plan for the morning. We had arrived at Cierva Cove and the weather looked promising for another nice paddle. Even still, a few of us were hesitating, so Sarah told Louise to “sell it.” (There was never any question whether Sarah was going paddling at any of the locations!

So Louise told us that there was a possibility (she emphasized that she couldn't guarantee anything) that we might see whales in this area. And, as she said, “If you see it from the zodiac, you'll just be thinking to yourselves that you could have seen it from your kayak.” I was definitely in at that point!

The conditions were really nice again and while it wasn't as spectacular as the day before at Neko Harbor, it was a close second.

We probably saw more icebergs here than we had seen anywhere else, and the slight swell in the water had them really bobbing up and down, looking like they could capsize at any moment. So we took extra care to stay a safe distance from them.

Alas, we didn't see any whales, but we did find one leopard seal.

So I was pretty happy when we got back to the ship—until we found out that the zodiac cruisers had actually come across a leopard seal feeding its pup! Again, Brandon told us this was the first time he'd ever seen that, which only added to my regret that we had missed it. (It was a bit ironic, too, after Louise's earlier sales job.) This was the only real disappointment I had during the trip, though, and everything else was so much better than I could ever have imagined that I really can't complain.

In the afternoon we went kayaking again, this time at Mikkelson Harbor. It's a small sheltered bay, so we were expecting a fairly easy paddle. It actually turned out to be a bit windier than we had expected and we had to work a little, but the cool thing about this trip was that we were able to park ourselves near a glacier that was really rumbling from internal movements. Normally we wouldn't have been able to get that close, because if it calved into the water, it could cause a tidal wave that would be really dangerous for us. But this particular glacier had a rocky outcrapping in front of it that provided us with protection. And it paid off. Just as we were about to head back, there was a fairly sizable calving and we could see the snow tumbling into the sea. And there was, in fact, a small tidal wave, but we were completely sheltered by the rocks.

When we got back to shore, we had to walk a short distance to the zodiacs that would take us back to the ship. There were lots of gentoos around, and we also saw a skua above them keeping an eye out for an opportunity. Then, as we were walking back, we actually came across an egg that must have already been stolen, because it had a hole in it. Louise picked it up and turned it over, and this bright red liquid came pouring out of it. None of us had known that was the colour of their contents. This was another one of those gross/cool moments. (The picture below came from Sarah.)

That evening we had a long way to travel to make it to the South Shetland Islands for the next day's activities, so we all just stayed onboard the ship, relaxing, socializing, and reviewing our photos.

Since this post is notably lacking in pictures, I decided to put together a short video that has clips from a few different places we'd been during the week, most of which you'll recognize from earlier posts. (The last two clips Jamie shot on my behalf, which is probably why they're a lot less shaky... :) The video runs about three and a half minutes. Enjoy!

Next installment: Taking the plunge.