Dallmann Bay, Antarctica
Our final day on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula began at Port Lockroy, a wonderful natural harbor on the west side of Wiencke Island. Captain Skog nosed the N. G. Endeavour close to Goudier Island, on which sits a former research base of the British Antarctic Survey. Calm waters, protected from winds, allowing a final kayak outing. Giant whalebones littered the shoreline and could be seen beneath us in the crystal-clear water, attesting to an earlier era, 100 years in the past, when giant whales by the thousands were killed and reduced to barrels of oil. In 1943, Argentina sent a naval vessel to Antarctica to lay claim to the Peninsula and a wedge leading to the South Pole. They left a marker of their claim at Port Lockroy. To counter the Argentine claim Great Britain organized an expedition (code name Operation Tabarin, after a bawdy nightclub in Paris) to remove the marker and establish a manned base to support their own territorial claim in the Antarctic. It also provided an ear for radio traffic in the Southern Ocean in the later days of WW II. The base was occupied year-around until 1962. With the signing of the Antarctic Treaty all territorial claims were held in abeyance and such flag-waving was no longer needed. The station at Port Lockroy was abandoned. It fell into disrepair until 1996, when the British Antarctic Survey and the Antarctic Heritage Trust began restoration. It is now a fine museum and window into the lives of men over-wintering in Antarctica, as well as the farthest-south Post Office and souvenir shop, staffed by a team of three. We took full advantage of their hospitality and their wares.
And then it was time to continue making our way north. We passed between Anvers and Brabant Islands via Dallmann Bay. Could there possibly be one more rabbit in the hat, one more magical experience in this trip of wonders? We had come to Dallmann Bay to search for humpback whales, and did we ever find them! Spouts could be seen all around us, and soon right next to us! We found a cow-calf pair, recently arrived from their wintering, calving, and breeding waters off the west coast of South America. They were engaged in the fascinating behavior of bubble-net feeding in which one whale (presumably the mother) releases a stream of bubbles that acts as a curtain to surround and concentrate a school of prey (probably krill, although the behavior is also used in preying on small schooling fish.) The whales then swim up through the bubble-net, huge mouths agape, to engulf a mass of water and concentrated prey. The water is forced through the baleen plates, the delectable, energy-rich krill are licked from the baleen by the massive tongue, and the process is repeated, over and over. Thus, in these productive Antarctic waters the whales recover the fat that was lost in the Zodiacs for water-level views of the humpbacks. The whales were abundant enough that each Zodiac and its occupants could have their own personal encounters with these seemingly-gentle leviathans, gradually recovering from their former depredation. With a backdrop of snow and ice-covered slopes, giant tabular icebergs floating in the water, and crabeater seals loafing on smaller chunks of ice, it was a more than fitting conclusion to our experiences in Antarctica.
Another fine dinner, surrounded by a 360° vista of light, snow, and ice, and we entered the Drake Passage, northbound.
Our final day on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula began at Port Lockroy, a wonderful natural harbor on the west side of Wiencke Island. Captain Skog nosed the N. G. Endeavour close to Goudier Island, on which sits a former research base of the British Antarctic Survey. Calm waters, protected from winds, allowing a final kayak outing. Giant whalebones littered the shoreline and could be seen beneath us in the crystal-clear water, attesting to an earlier era, 100 years in the past, when giant whales by the thousands were killed and reduced to barrels of oil. In 1943, Argentina sent a naval vessel to Antarctica to lay claim to the Peninsula and a wedge leading to the South Pole. They left a marker of their claim at Port Lockroy. To counter the Argentine claim Great Britain organized an expedition (code name Operation Tabarin, after a bawdy nightclub in Paris) to remove the marker and establish a manned base to support their own territorial claim in the Antarctic. It also provided an ear for radio traffic in the Southern Ocean in the later days of WW II. The base was occupied year-around until 1962. With the signing of the Antarctic Treaty all territorial claims were held in abeyance and such flag-waving was no longer needed. The station at Port Lockroy was abandoned. It fell into disrepair until 1996, when the British Antarctic Survey and the Antarctic Heritage Trust began restoration. It is now a fine museum and window into the lives of men over-wintering in Antarctica, as well as the farthest-south Post Office and souvenir shop, staffed by a team of three. We took full advantage of their hospitality and their wares.
And then it was time to continue making our way north. We passed between Anvers and Brabant Islands via Dallmann Bay. Could there possibly be one more rabbit in the hat, one more magical experience in this trip of wonders? We had come to Dallmann Bay to search for humpback whales, and did we ever find them! Spouts could be seen all around us, and soon right next to us! We found a cow-calf pair, recently arrived from their wintering, calving, and breeding waters off the west coast of South America. They were engaged in the fascinating behavior of bubble-net feeding in which one whale (presumably the mother) releases a stream of bubbles that acts as a curtain to surround and concentrate a school of prey (probably krill, although the behavior is also used in preying on small schooling fish.) The whales then swim up through the bubble-net, huge mouths agape, to engulf a mass of water and concentrated prey. The water is forced through the baleen plates, the delectable, energy-rich krill are licked from the baleen by the massive tongue, and the process is repeated, over and over. Thus, in these productive Antarctic waters the whales recover the fat that was lost in the Zodiacs for water-level views of the humpbacks. The whales were abundant enough that each Zodiac and its occupants could have their own personal encounters with these seemingly-gentle leviathans, gradually recovering from their former depredation. With a backdrop of snow and ice-covered slopes, giant tabular icebergs floating in the water, and crabeater seals loafing on smaller chunks of ice, it was a more than fitting conclusion to our experiences in Antarctica.
Another fine dinner, surrounded by a 360° vista of light, snow, and ice, and we entered the Drake Passage, northbound.
