Spectacular Sightings

Jan 12, 2016 – This morning we got an early wake up call (the Expedition leader makes a wake up announcement over the intercom every morning so there’s no sleeping in). Everyone headed to the exterior decks to watch as we passed through the Lemaire Channel. You know it’s a really special experience when all the staff are out there with you oohing and awing. This passage is quite narrow, and had a lot of ice. We also saw tons of wildlife. As the ship pushed through the ice penguins waddled out of the way, and seals swam in the opposite direction. Even a whale swam out from the front of the ship’s path. The light was beautifully reflecting off of the snow-covered mountains surrounding the channel. It was truly stunning!

Once out of the channel we went to Pléneau Island. There was no landing here. We just kayaked around the island. There was a lot of ice on the water, including sea ice, which is very thin. This made for a really cool kayak experience as we paddled through the sea ice. Here we saw even more Gentoo penguins (those birds are everywhere) and a lot of seals, both Crabeater and Elephant seals. There was also a lot of Antarctica Tern that were flying low over our heads and nesting on the rock.  

 

After lunch we sailed to Dorian Bay. On our way we saw a family of Orcas (which I learned on this trip are not whales, but actually dolphins).  We watched them for about 20 minutes as the ship sailed around in order to keep them in our line of sight. We also saw a humpback whale, but they have become pretty commonplace on this trip.  When we arrived to Dorian Bay we saw even more whales. In Expedition fashion (which means being very flexible, and changing plans based on the conditions) we did not do a landing here. Instead everyone went out on either a zodiac or kayak and followed the whales. In our kayaks we got about 30 meters from a humpback whale. We spent an hour kayaking in the bay and watching the whales come up for air, and showing their flukes as they dove down. We think there were at least 2 different humpbacks in these waters based on the sightings. There were also a few seals just chilling on a glacier.

 

Thankfully the weather had been beautiful all day, and we were able to camp tonight. We dressed in our warmest layers. I had 4 pairs of pants, 4 tops, 3 pairs of socks, and 2 pairs of gloves on. They provided us the sleeping bags rated for negative degrees. Lucky for us it was only 1 degree Celsius, and very little wind. Once we arrived we leveled out a little patch of snow where we would sleep. Our bed consisted of a sleeping mat on the bottom, a fleece liner, the sleeping bag, and another mat all tucked in to a bivy. The bivy acts as the outermost waterproof and windproof layer. It was a bit of a struggle to climb inside all those layers, and get comfortably situated. Once inside you synch up the drawstring so only your eyes and nose are outside. My set up was a little off so the hole was closer to the top of my head than my face so I slept completely submerged in there, which was fine by me. The sun is up for 16 hours here, and then fades into dusk or dawn so it never gets completely dark. Surprisingly I fell asleep. IT wasn’t the most comfortable of beds, but I slept. We went to bed at about midnight. Adorable penguins and seals about us. Wake up was at 5:45 am. My feet were pretty cold during the night, but the rest of me was comfortable. (Again, shocking. I know!) It was such an incredible opportunity. I am so glad I got to do it!