Barrientos Island, Aitcho Group, South Shetland Archipelago
Sailing conditions were nearly perfect this morning as we prepared for our first Antarctic landfall. By midday, the National Geographic Explorer had reached the northern entrance of the English Strait, a passage located about midway in the South Shetland Archipelago.
We entered the waterway with a bit of trepidation, however, as conditions were totally fogged in, but it soon lifted and we found ourselves near Barrientos Island in the Aitcho Group. It is worth pointing out here that the name Aitcho is actually the phonetic spelling for H.O. (short for Hydrographic Office of the British Admiralty). The group is composed of several islands and islets that are too small to develop permanent ice caps like the rest of the South Shetlands, so they are heavily used by wildlife. This makes Barrientos Island an ideal first stop for us in Antarctica. Here, we were able to easily able to observe several chinstrap and gentoo penguin colonies right above the landing site (see image above left), and found it very interesting to walk along the beach and get close looks at elephant seals, whale bones, and lots more penguins coming from and going into the water (see image above right). Those of us who meandered over the hill directly behind the landing were treated to many more penguins, as well as giant petrels, skuas, sheathbills, and a single leopard seal in a small bay that some of us witnessed capture and consume a chinstrap penguin.
The South Shetlands are volcanic in origin, but the islands in this region are no longer active. The relatively soft deposits of tuffstone (compacted volcanic ash) have been heavily eroded, producing some amazing formations including needles, spirals, towers, and other bizarre shapes that we could see off in the distance, especially during the exciting Zodiac cruises around the island. The Aitcho Islands are particularly known for their rich moss beds, and in addition much of the lower regions are covered with coatings of prasiola algae…all of which gives the islands a distinctive greenish color. This seems a very strange phenomenon to find in Antarctica, and is probably helped by the especially high precipitation of the area (which we experienced for ourselves this afternoon). We can be assured we won’t find anything so lush like this when we go farther south to explore around the peninsular region.
