At Sea
We completed our crossing of the infamous Drake Passage this morning with fine sea conditions. We reached the South Shetland Archipelago right after lunch and chose Aitcho Island as our official introduction to the Antarctic environment. The Island is located in the northern reaches of the English Strait, a passage located about midway in the archipelago. Snow flurries and overcast skies and mist gave the island an eerie look and feel as we made our final approach, and windy conditions forced us to search carefully for a protected anchorage. We quickly found a suitable site and soon had people going ashore in the Zodiacs. What a wonderful introduction, indeed, Aitcho turned out to be for us. You can see by the photo that a welcoming committee of gentoo penguins enthusiastically greeted us on the beach at our first landing in Antarctica.
The South Shetland Islands are volcanic in origin, but most of them, including Aitcho Island, are no longer active. Many of us hiked to the far western end of the island and were rewarded with spectacular views of the surrounding waters and islands, as well as evocative shapes and designs in the heavily eroded volcanic tuffstone and basalt columns. Although the island is heavily coated with snow during much of the year, it was now almost bare dark volcanic sands and rocky outcrops, and a few extended moss beds, and made for easy walking. The wildlife here is abundant and easily approached. Throughout our expedition ashore, we observed numerous chinstrap and gentoo penguin colonies, giant petrels, pintado petrels, skuas, kelp gulls, Antarctic terns, and lots of elephant seals. We took plenty of time to explore the island this afternoon, so people had the chance to relax and observe interesting behavior among the penguins, and I assume everyone watched gentoo chicks being fed regurgitated food by their parents, individual males stealing stones from each others’ nests, ecstatic displays of ‘affection’ among the chinstraps, and more. There was a drizzling rain throughout much of the afternoon, but the temperature was mild and it did little to dampen our enthusiasm… especially since this was the first Antarctic experience of the voyage and everyone was too excited to worry about it.
We completed our crossing of the infamous Drake Passage this morning with fine sea conditions. We reached the South Shetland Archipelago right after lunch and chose Aitcho Island as our official introduction to the Antarctic environment. The Island is located in the northern reaches of the English Strait, a passage located about midway in the archipelago. Snow flurries and overcast skies and mist gave the island an eerie look and feel as we made our final approach, and windy conditions forced us to search carefully for a protected anchorage. We quickly found a suitable site and soon had people going ashore in the Zodiacs. What a wonderful introduction, indeed, Aitcho turned out to be for us. You can see by the photo that a welcoming committee of gentoo penguins enthusiastically greeted us on the beach at our first landing in Antarctica.
The South Shetland Islands are volcanic in origin, but most of them, including Aitcho Island, are no longer active. Many of us hiked to the far western end of the island and were rewarded with spectacular views of the surrounding waters and islands, as well as evocative shapes and designs in the heavily eroded volcanic tuffstone and basalt columns. Although the island is heavily coated with snow during much of the year, it was now almost bare dark volcanic sands and rocky outcrops, and a few extended moss beds, and made for easy walking. The wildlife here is abundant and easily approached. Throughout our expedition ashore, we observed numerous chinstrap and gentoo penguin colonies, giant petrels, pintado petrels, skuas, kelp gulls, Antarctic terns, and lots of elephant seals. We took plenty of time to explore the island this afternoon, so people had the chance to relax and observe interesting behavior among the penguins, and I assume everyone watched gentoo chicks being fed regurgitated food by their parents, individual males stealing stones from each others’ nests, ecstatic displays of ‘affection’ among the chinstraps, and more. There was a drizzling rain throughout much of the afternoon, but the temperature was mild and it did little to dampen our enthusiasm… especially since this was the first Antarctic experience of the voyage and everyone was too excited to worry about it.
