Elephant Island
Already at 5 AM our expedition leader gave us the wake up call. Outside it was a totally new landscape. We are now both politically and by all other definitions inside Antarctica. Through the night the ship had manovered into an area filled with icebergs and broken sea-ice, which was drifting around us as we approached Cape Wild at Elephant Island.
The island was discovered and charted by a British expedition led by Brainsfield in 1820 and most likely named for the many elephant seals at the beaches. It took us only two days to back track Shackleton’s 16-day boat trip to King Haakan’s Bay at South Georgia but we did this in a very comfortable environment onboard the Endeavour. All Zodiacs were launched and we had a magical morning, Zodiac cruising around the small bay at Cape Wild. This area houses a large colony of Chinstrap penguins and was named after the second in command on the Shackleton Trans-Antarctic expedition. A few orcas gave some brief views while a huge leopard seal played with its chinstrap penguin prey. Still it gave us unique oppourtunities to study and learn more about this seal. Views of Leopard seals are not common but sometimes occur around a penguin colony here in the Antarctic Peninsula area. The seal’s main food is krill but some animals take advantage of the huge numbers of penguins, which occur during breeding time in certain areas. The estimated population of this animal, which is confined to Antarctica, is a few 100,000 animals. The breeding ecology of this big seal is mainly un-known.
The landing site, Cape Wild, where 22 of Shackleton’s men stayed for almost 4 ½ months to wait for the rescue was covered by snow. Since the sea condition was ideal we were able to do a very rare thing, to actually land at the point and walk up to the monument of the Captain Louis Pardo Villalon, who was able to save the men in August 1916 onboard the tugboat Yelcho. Before we left this exposed island in the Drake Passage the Captain was also able to bring the ship close to Cape Valletine. Through the snowfall we saw the exposed site the men first touch land after almost 16 months at sea or on the ice. Around the ship we also saw snow and Antarctic petrels fly by.
As we sailed further south into Branfields Strait we continued our lecture series and some of us also spent time looking for whales. The wind more or less dropped totally in the afternoon and the sea became like a mirror. As the great finale of our first day in Antarctica, during recap, we spotted a pod of Orcas.
Already at 5 AM our expedition leader gave us the wake up call. Outside it was a totally new landscape. We are now both politically and by all other definitions inside Antarctica. Through the night the ship had manovered into an area filled with icebergs and broken sea-ice, which was drifting around us as we approached Cape Wild at Elephant Island.
The island was discovered and charted by a British expedition led by Brainsfield in 1820 and most likely named for the many elephant seals at the beaches. It took us only two days to back track Shackleton’s 16-day boat trip to King Haakan’s Bay at South Georgia but we did this in a very comfortable environment onboard the Endeavour. All Zodiacs were launched and we had a magical morning, Zodiac cruising around the small bay at Cape Wild. This area houses a large colony of Chinstrap penguins and was named after the second in command on the Shackleton Trans-Antarctic expedition. A few orcas gave some brief views while a huge leopard seal played with its chinstrap penguin prey. Still it gave us unique oppourtunities to study and learn more about this seal. Views of Leopard seals are not common but sometimes occur around a penguin colony here in the Antarctic Peninsula area. The seal’s main food is krill but some animals take advantage of the huge numbers of penguins, which occur during breeding time in certain areas. The estimated population of this animal, which is confined to Antarctica, is a few 100,000 animals. The breeding ecology of this big seal is mainly un-known.
The landing site, Cape Wild, where 22 of Shackleton’s men stayed for almost 4 ½ months to wait for the rescue was covered by snow. Since the sea condition was ideal we were able to do a very rare thing, to actually land at the point and walk up to the monument of the Captain Louis Pardo Villalon, who was able to save the men in August 1916 onboard the tugboat Yelcho. Before we left this exposed island in the Drake Passage the Captain was also able to bring the ship close to Cape Valletine. Through the snowfall we saw the exposed site the men first touch land after almost 16 months at sea or on the ice. Around the ship we also saw snow and Antarctic petrels fly by.
As we sailed further south into Branfields Strait we continued our lecture series and some of us also spent time looking for whales. The wind more or less dropped totally in the afternoon and the sea became like a mirror. As the great finale of our first day in Antarctica, during recap, we spotted a pod of Orcas.
