Farewell to Antarctica – for now

The grandeur of Antarctica has captured both of us.  We can stand on the deck or at the window and just watch… Watch the snow blow, or the birds flying by, or the water.  Watch the incredible penguins swim through and under the water.  Watch the elephant seal ever so slowly turn her head and look at us. And of course watch the penguins as they interact and do their dances with one another.  Some of the mountains are over 4,000 feet above the ocean.  One’s view is mostly black and white or should I say white and black.  The vast ice and snow makes the area look white with an occasional outcrop of mountain where the wind has blown away this year’s snow.  We can not comprehend how inhospitable this place is in the winter.

On Saturday we visited Gonzalez Videla Base, a Chilean “research” base, on the Antarctic mainland’s Waterboat Point in Paradise Bay.  The base is inactive during the winter and maintains fuel and supplies in storage in the buildings for emergency use, or in case the base were to be reactivated in the future.  We rode the Zodiac ashore, although it was less inspiring than the other landings we have had.  Because it is a base, there are a number of buildings and a concrete sidewalk on which we had to walk.  Margo took the extremely steep, narrow steps up to the observation tower to get a 360-degree view from the base.  The view was inspiring, but those steps were not made for short legs!  There was a sign on the base that said we were 2,908 kilometers from the South Pole. 

Remember the penguin poop we talked about earlier? Well Saturday was the absolute worse we have experienced.  The expedition team lead reminded us that all our outer wear now smelled like penguin poop, or “guano” that is a nicer way to say it.  They told us at our Friday night briefing that on a bad-smell scale of 1 to 10, the expedition team rated this place a 45.  Not quite that bad if you held your breath.

The base is home to thousands of gentoo penguins with their chicks.  It was also home to Snowy Sheatbills that are very pretty white birds but predators of the penguins.  Some people in our group saw a Snowy Sheatbill with a baby penguin in his mouth.  Our initial thought was “how sad!” but then we thought, well from the perspective of the Snowy Sheatbill, it was good news, they had found dinner.  There is usually one penguin in an area that chases the birds away. However, if one of the parents of a chick also has to chase a bird that is getting too close, another Sheatbill sneaks in and grabs the lonely chick.

Saturday evening we had dinner in the restaurant with our Trivia friends, Deb & Paul, Ian & Tina, and Connie & Bill.  We had so much fun and may have made a bit too much noise in the restaurant with our stories and laughter. 

After dinner we went to the Observation Deck on deck 10 for some phenomenal whale watching.  Hundreds of humpback whales were in the area and gave us a real show.  I don’t think we have any pictures because we were so focused on enjoying them!

During the night we traveled to Enterprise Island that was a major whaling location in the early 1900s. Sunday morning our group (Purple bands) were on the first trip for zodiac rides.  Because we are leaving this area Sunday afternoon, the zodiac expositions started early – 6:00 am!  We set the alarm for 5:05 am so as not to miss our last chance to explore the Antarctic islands. 

The ride today was a Zodiac excursion around the area so we got a bit colder than when we had been walking ashore.  We know for our next trip that zodiac rides are when one would use hand and foot warmers.  It was a beautiful ride around smallish icebergs or as they are actually called biddy-bergs.   This is where we saw elephant seals and quite a few birds.  The whales were still sleeping because it was so damned early!

When we returned from our early ride, we had breakfast then nap.  Mid-morning we were back on the observation deck and saw at least five humpback whales right alongside the zodiacs that were out for their trip.  Our friends were fortunate to have been in one of the zodiacs with the whale show up close and personal – they said the whales were so close they could hear them breathing, and they could see the barnacles on their tales!  While we couldn’t see them that close, we were pretty mesmerized watching them from the ship.

This afternoon we will leave Enterprise Island and the Antarctica as we head north-northeast towards the Falkland Islands.  We are already talking about our next trip to Antarctica. We feel just a bit forlorn at having to say farewell for now.

As we were leaving Antarctica, the Quest had its traditional polar plunge.  They drain the pool and refill it with cold seawater.  All who want to jump in!  We didn’t even think about joining in that fun, but Margo watched as approximately 50 people took the plunge.  It was crazy!  They didn’t even seem extremely cold when they got out – I think they were so invigorated they couldn’t feel any physical affects.

We will sail across Drake Passage tonight and tomorrow.  According to what Mark sees from the on-line sea maps and what the captain said, we should start with reasonable calm seas overnight, 10 to 12 feet.  Tomorrow might be a different story, but we will wait and see what mother nature has in store.