Jenny Island, Marguerite Bay, Hanusse Bay
It is a virtual axiom of adventure and exploration that the more one travels and sees, the more one realizes how little of this world one has seen. Antarctica is obviously a very large place. Antarctic tourism companies for matters of practicality and expediency concentrate their efforts in the Peninsula region, and the bulk of those enterprises focus on the northernmost reaches of the Peninsula and surrounding islands. Lindblad and National Geographic harbor greater ambitions, carried to new and inspired heights by the seasoned, veteran personnel aboard the National Geographic Endeavour. For it is their charge to accomplish what other companies are feint to attempt.
In response to, and as a result of just such an attitude, the previous evening our vessel began to undergo a change in motion. Moving out into the unprotected waters of the Southern Ocean along the west coast of Adelaide Island the National Geographic Endeavour began to dance to the rhythm of long-period rolling swells, her gate evenly-timed, heavy, and ponderous. Though a bit uncomfortable such a course avoided progress-impeding pack-ice, still held fast within the confines of the coastal islands and the peninsula, and provided the clearest heading south to the Antarctic Circle and beyond, to realms seldom traveled.
Though still outside the western edges of ice-covered Adelaide Island, morning came gently. Some of the more intrepid guests opted for a selective 0525hrs wake-up call, so they could be alert and present as our ship crossed the great parallel that marks the Antarctic Circle. The winds dropped to mere breaths, and the seas had flattened mirror-smooth. A few high lenticular clouds and scattered patches of peak-clinging fog and mist were the only signs of atmospheric moisture. Visibility appeared to be limited only by the capabilities of the eye and the virtually imperceptible curvature of the Earth. Birds and Minke whales occasionally brought small turns of action to the apparently motionless stage. Wildlife viewing could not have been undertaken in more ideal conditions. Numbers were few, but in such a static field they were difficult to miss.
Turning to the east around the southern flank of Adelaide Island a scene of spellbinding southern grandeur opened before us. The ice-covered mountains of the Peninsula, slightly brush-stroked in amber by distance and the low sun and capped in a far-off blanket of gray, stretched across our field of vision. The winds increased, and small clouds began to gather overhead. Adelaide Island's southernmost ramparts back-dropped our vessel from our perch on Jenny Island, our day's first port of call. The island is tall, a matrix of severe, conical rock, cracked and broken by omnipresent ice. At first glance, apparently lifeless, it was temporary refuge to hundreds of lazing Southern elephant seals. Largest of all seals, each one an immense sausage of blubber, they seemed unconcerned with our invasion, content to lie on the rocky beach in lethargic bliss. Perhaps it is the crushing reality of gravity - moving from an essentially weightless medium to land, where any motion at all requires extraordinary effort - which propels them to just lie immobile. No matter, we could only stand amused or repulsed by their penchant for performing unsavory bodily functions, undaunted and certainly unembarrassed by the throngs of red parka-clad patrons viewing their lifestyle on shore.
Sailing into the heart of Marguerite Bay we were besieged by a change in the weather. The winds, which had briefly multiplied into moderate breezes, abated altogether as we approached the northern reaches of the Gullet and Hanusse Bay. It was here during eventide that Captain Leif Skog, with a skill honed from years operating in the frozen south, deftly drove our vessel into trenchant, unmoving, fastened pack ice. A large contingent of Chinstrap penguins, non-breeders and failed breeders alike, moved en masse and settled under the bow of our ship, perhaps emboldened with curiosity at the blue and white steel behemoth that had surprisingly crashed upon their quiet reality. After the gangway was secured and the ice tested for strength by the staff and crew, we all stepped out into an ethereal, dream-like world, a temporary but very real and sturdy landscape, upon which no other human mortals had ever trod - and probably never would. The air was absolutely still and crisp with cold silence, the sun a dying ember which cast an unearthly glow, the sky a brooding veil of dark cloud, the ice stretching out into a ghostly undefined expanse of white; it was - otherworldly.
The way had been paved for a level trek across the pack to one impressively-sized, imprisoned iceberg. Icebergs, concentrations of frozen fresh water compressed to ice from snow under pressure, time, and gravity, and then calved into the sea from their parent glaciers, are moved by different forces (principally ocean currents) from those that influence the formation and wind-driven march of pack ice (frozen seawater). This one big berg, which we circumnavigated on foot, was a victim of circumstance, caught in an icy clutch. A breathing hole near the berg, rasped in the ice and frequented on a few occasions by a Weddell seal during our sojourn, let us know that close beneath our feet was the medium upon which the iceberg would be set in motion. For now, it was a prisoner of the pack until such time as shifting currents and winds and the inevitable warmth of the midnight sun would set it free to float upon the ocean once more.
It is a virtual axiom of adventure and exploration that the more one travels and sees, the more one realizes how little of this world one has seen. Antarctica is obviously a very large place. Antarctic tourism companies for matters of practicality and expediency concentrate their efforts in the Peninsula region, and the bulk of those enterprises focus on the northernmost reaches of the Peninsula and surrounding islands. Lindblad and National Geographic harbor greater ambitions, carried to new and inspired heights by the seasoned, veteran personnel aboard the National Geographic Endeavour. For it is their charge to accomplish what other companies are feint to attempt.
In response to, and as a result of just such an attitude, the previous evening our vessel began to undergo a change in motion. Moving out into the unprotected waters of the Southern Ocean along the west coast of Adelaide Island the National Geographic Endeavour began to dance to the rhythm of long-period rolling swells, her gate evenly-timed, heavy, and ponderous. Though a bit uncomfortable such a course avoided progress-impeding pack-ice, still held fast within the confines of the coastal islands and the peninsula, and provided the clearest heading south to the Antarctic Circle and beyond, to realms seldom traveled.
Though still outside the western edges of ice-covered Adelaide Island, morning came gently. Some of the more intrepid guests opted for a selective 0525hrs wake-up call, so they could be alert and present as our ship crossed the great parallel that marks the Antarctic Circle. The winds dropped to mere breaths, and the seas had flattened mirror-smooth. A few high lenticular clouds and scattered patches of peak-clinging fog and mist were the only signs of atmospheric moisture. Visibility appeared to be limited only by the capabilities of the eye and the virtually imperceptible curvature of the Earth. Birds and Minke whales occasionally brought small turns of action to the apparently motionless stage. Wildlife viewing could not have been undertaken in more ideal conditions. Numbers were few, but in such a static field they were difficult to miss.
Turning to the east around the southern flank of Adelaide Island a scene of spellbinding southern grandeur opened before us. The ice-covered mountains of the Peninsula, slightly brush-stroked in amber by distance and the low sun and capped in a far-off blanket of gray, stretched across our field of vision. The winds increased, and small clouds began to gather overhead. Adelaide Island's southernmost ramparts back-dropped our vessel from our perch on Jenny Island, our day's first port of call. The island is tall, a matrix of severe, conical rock, cracked and broken by omnipresent ice. At first glance, apparently lifeless, it was temporary refuge to hundreds of lazing Southern elephant seals. Largest of all seals, each one an immense sausage of blubber, they seemed unconcerned with our invasion, content to lie on the rocky beach in lethargic bliss. Perhaps it is the crushing reality of gravity - moving from an essentially weightless medium to land, where any motion at all requires extraordinary effort - which propels them to just lie immobile. No matter, we could only stand amused or repulsed by their penchant for performing unsavory bodily functions, undaunted and certainly unembarrassed by the throngs of red parka-clad patrons viewing their lifestyle on shore.
Sailing into the heart of Marguerite Bay we were besieged by a change in the weather. The winds, which had briefly multiplied into moderate breezes, abated altogether as we approached the northern reaches of the Gullet and Hanusse Bay. It was here during eventide that Captain Leif Skog, with a skill honed from years operating in the frozen south, deftly drove our vessel into trenchant, unmoving, fastened pack ice. A large contingent of Chinstrap penguins, non-breeders and failed breeders alike, moved en masse and settled under the bow of our ship, perhaps emboldened with curiosity at the blue and white steel behemoth that had surprisingly crashed upon their quiet reality. After the gangway was secured and the ice tested for strength by the staff and crew, we all stepped out into an ethereal, dream-like world, a temporary but very real and sturdy landscape, upon which no other human mortals had ever trod - and probably never would. The air was absolutely still and crisp with cold silence, the sun a dying ember which cast an unearthly glow, the sky a brooding veil of dark cloud, the ice stretching out into a ghostly undefined expanse of white; it was - otherworldly.
The way had been paved for a level trek across the pack to one impressively-sized, imprisoned iceberg. Icebergs, concentrations of frozen fresh water compressed to ice from snow under pressure, time, and gravity, and then calved into the sea from their parent glaciers, are moved by different forces (principally ocean currents) from those that influence the formation and wind-driven march of pack ice (frozen seawater). This one big berg, which we circumnavigated on foot, was a victim of circumstance, caught in an icy clutch. A breathing hole near the berg, rasped in the ice and frequented on a few occasions by a Weddell seal during our sojourn, let us know that close beneath our feet was the medium upon which the iceberg would be set in motion. For now, it was a prisoner of the pack until such time as shifting currents and winds and the inevitable warmth of the midnight sun would set it free to float upon the ocean once more.
