Drake Passage & Beagle Channel
Early morning we woke up still in the Drake Passage, but conditions were more pleasant than yesterday. The wind had dropped as the well, and as we approached the shelf break near Cape Horn the ocean was teeming with different seabirds. Three species of great albatrosses encircled the ship, Southern and Northern Royal Albatrosses from their breeding areas around New Zealand and wandering albatrosses from South Georgia.
This was also a day to summarize our voyage down south. As we arrived about two weeks ago to Ushuaia and before we embarked the ship we did visit a place the local guides named “the end of the World.” Now we know the world does not end at the southern tip of South America.
Terra Cognito or Terra Australis was first used for the unknown continent farther south. James Cook onboard Resolution in 1772 was convinced there had to be something down south. He was the first to cross the Antarctic Circle in Jan. 1772 but the ice stopped him, and he never saw the continent but did find islands like South Georgia and a few of the South Sandwich Islands. In 1819 a British ship commanded by William Smith saw land and a year later the South Shetlands were pounded by sealers from New England and Britain. The first heydays to Antarctica started and we got to touch at our first landing at Aitcho Island and later at Halfmoon Island.
The heroic age refers to the explorers arriving to Antarctica from 1896 and ended with Sir Ernest Shackleton dying at Grytviken on his ship Quest in 1922. Through our voyage we sailed in the wake of four famous explorers to Antarctica, Otto Nordenskjöld, Carl Anton Larsen, Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Adrian de Gerlache. All four, new names to many of us, helped us understand the hardship about navigation in Antarctic waters with ice and wind, also remembering that these early visitors did not even have charts. They made them! Also we had the opportunity to visit overwintering sites and maybe get a hint about the hardship to just survive one Antarctic winter.
The word “penguin” most likely derives from the North Atlantic and was one of many names of the only flightless auk, the Great Auk. Most likely early English sailors who came down south brought the name and now we have penguins in the Southern Ocean. Only 5 species out of 18 are really found in Antarctica and, in fact, only two can be regarded as true Antarctic penguins, the Emperor and the Adelie. At the very tip of the Peninsula we also encountered two more species, the Gentoo and also the Chinstrap, which both would be better called Subantarctic penguins. Through Oceanites we have learned about how the numbers of penguins varies over different years. At some colonies we visited, the numbers of chicks are up and at others, down. This is nature and always a challenge to understand.
Many of our landings did have a strong historical touch from the second round of heydays in Antarctica, the booming age of whaling along the Peninsula 1907-1931. At Deception Island we were able to still find remains of the only land-based whaling station ever established in Antarctica. Sites like Neko Harbour and Cuverville also bear remains from this era. All together for the years between 1907 and 1931, about 85 000 whales were killed near the Peninsula, mainly Blue, Fin and Humpback whales.
Our last day near Dallman Bay showed us that nature has a tremendous ability to heal. Maybe as many as 50 humpbacks whales were feeding around the area, and countless times we had whales more or less right up to the ship. For the two other species it will maybe take a longer time to recover, but one day we can be sure the waters of Antarctica will again swarm with both Blue and Fin whales.
One of the humpbacks did in fact draw our specific attention. As almost the whole back and even parts of the hump was white, our whale specialist pointed out that this could maybe be an animal from the population normally wintering in the South Pacific and spending the summer on the eastern side of Ross Sea. Hopefully as we send the pictures to the whale catalogue this can be confirmed and, if this is the case, it will be a unique recording.
Every trip to Antarctica is special and different, and as we are now approaching the docks to Ushuaia, we are sure we all want to come back to the Antarctic! It is still the one and only continent more or less pristine from any human activities. We hope it will stay like this.
Early morning we woke up still in the Drake Passage, but conditions were more pleasant than yesterday. The wind had dropped as the well, and as we approached the shelf break near Cape Horn the ocean was teeming with different seabirds. Three species of great albatrosses encircled the ship, Southern and Northern Royal Albatrosses from their breeding areas around New Zealand and wandering albatrosses from South Georgia.
This was also a day to summarize our voyage down south. As we arrived about two weeks ago to Ushuaia and before we embarked the ship we did visit a place the local guides named “the end of the World.” Now we know the world does not end at the southern tip of South America.
Terra Cognito or Terra Australis was first used for the unknown continent farther south. James Cook onboard Resolution in 1772 was convinced there had to be something down south. He was the first to cross the Antarctic Circle in Jan. 1772 but the ice stopped him, and he never saw the continent but did find islands like South Georgia and a few of the South Sandwich Islands. In 1819 a British ship commanded by William Smith saw land and a year later the South Shetlands were pounded by sealers from New England and Britain. The first heydays to Antarctica started and we got to touch at our first landing at Aitcho Island and later at Halfmoon Island.
The heroic age refers to the explorers arriving to Antarctica from 1896 and ended with Sir Ernest Shackleton dying at Grytviken on his ship Quest in 1922. Through our voyage we sailed in the wake of four famous explorers to Antarctica, Otto Nordenskjöld, Carl Anton Larsen, Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Adrian de Gerlache. All four, new names to many of us, helped us understand the hardship about navigation in Antarctic waters with ice and wind, also remembering that these early visitors did not even have charts. They made them! Also we had the opportunity to visit overwintering sites and maybe get a hint about the hardship to just survive one Antarctic winter.
The word “penguin” most likely derives from the North Atlantic and was one of many names of the only flightless auk, the Great Auk. Most likely early English sailors who came down south brought the name and now we have penguins in the Southern Ocean. Only 5 species out of 18 are really found in Antarctica and, in fact, only two can be regarded as true Antarctic penguins, the Emperor and the Adelie. At the very tip of the Peninsula we also encountered two more species, the Gentoo and also the Chinstrap, which both would be better called Subantarctic penguins. Through Oceanites we have learned about how the numbers of penguins varies over different years. At some colonies we visited, the numbers of chicks are up and at others, down. This is nature and always a challenge to understand.
Many of our landings did have a strong historical touch from the second round of heydays in Antarctica, the booming age of whaling along the Peninsula 1907-1931. At Deception Island we were able to still find remains of the only land-based whaling station ever established in Antarctica. Sites like Neko Harbour and Cuverville also bear remains from this era. All together for the years between 1907 and 1931, about 85 000 whales were killed near the Peninsula, mainly Blue, Fin and Humpback whales.
Our last day near Dallman Bay showed us that nature has a tremendous ability to heal. Maybe as many as 50 humpbacks whales were feeding around the area, and countless times we had whales more or less right up to the ship. For the two other species it will maybe take a longer time to recover, but one day we can be sure the waters of Antarctica will again swarm with both Blue and Fin whales.
One of the humpbacks did in fact draw our specific attention. As almost the whole back and even parts of the hump was white, our whale specialist pointed out that this could maybe be an animal from the population normally wintering in the South Pacific and spending the summer on the eastern side of Ross Sea. Hopefully as we send the pictures to the whale catalogue this can be confirmed and, if this is the case, it will be a unique recording.
Every trip to Antarctica is special and different, and as we are now approaching the docks to Ushuaia, we are sure we all want to come back to the Antarctic! It is still the one and only continent more or less pristine from any human activities. We hope it will stay like this.
