Port Lockroy and Palmer Station
Port Lockroy, one of Antarctica’s most historic locations, was our mail stop. Letters were posted in the old fashioned way with stamps and sent on by ship. Postcards and letters will arrive in a month or two, not as fast as this electronic communication. The British Base A at Lockroy built in 1944 to report on enemy activities in the Second World War has been renovated and staffed as a museum and post office. We met the three people at the base, the shags of Jougla Point, and the snowy sheathbills of Lockroy. The sheathbills went about their business of garbage patrol looking for any fragment of krill that a penguin might have deposited and that they could eat. It’s the closest view of sheathbills we’ve had.
These two stops convinced any remaining doubters on board that people as well as penguins live in the Antarctic, sometimes for extended periods of time and on occasion in comfort. Palmer Station, a scientific base for the US Antarctic Program and our afternoon stop is renowned for brownies that melt in your mouth. The added calories were quickly burned or replenished those lost from looking at Adelie penguins at Torgensen Island, a short Zodiac ride from Palmer.
Heavy snowfall covered traditional breeding sites in snow and forced many birds to start breeding too late to successfully rear chicks. The unexpected benefit is we have seen mostly all of the stages of breeding at each site: penguins courting, incubating, and feeding chicks.
Port Lockroy, one of Antarctica’s most historic locations, was our mail stop. Letters were posted in the old fashioned way with stamps and sent on by ship. Postcards and letters will arrive in a month or two, not as fast as this electronic communication. The British Base A at Lockroy built in 1944 to report on enemy activities in the Second World War has been renovated and staffed as a museum and post office. We met the three people at the base, the shags of Jougla Point, and the snowy sheathbills of Lockroy. The sheathbills went about their business of garbage patrol looking for any fragment of krill that a penguin might have deposited and that they could eat. It’s the closest view of sheathbills we’ve had.
These two stops convinced any remaining doubters on board that people as well as penguins live in the Antarctic, sometimes for extended periods of time and on occasion in comfort. Palmer Station, a scientific base for the US Antarctic Program and our afternoon stop is renowned for brownies that melt in your mouth. The added calories were quickly burned or replenished those lost from looking at Adelie penguins at Torgensen Island, a short Zodiac ride from Palmer.
Heavy snowfall covered traditional breeding sites in snow and forced many birds to start breeding too late to successfully rear chicks. The unexpected benefit is we have seen mostly all of the stages of breeding at each site: penguins courting, incubating, and feeding chicks.
