Aitcho Islands
The beginning of a journey to strange and distant lands is often fraught with anxiety and trepidation for the neophyte or even seasoned traveler. Logistical questions invariably dominate. Beyond that, matters of cultural etiquette, regional sensitivities, and biological and climatic concerns come to the forefront as considerations. Homework is a necessary component of travel abroad, and leads the way, hopefully, to wide-scale preparedness. Once due diligence in planning has been paid to the best of one’s abilities, the rest must openly be left to providence and chance.
Antarctica is a place that grants folly no reprieve. It is ill-advised to travel there without comprehensive preparation. We had all placed great trust in Lindblad Expeditions and the National Geographic Society to safely guide us through our initiation to the Southern Ocean. The vessel, the National Geographic Explorer had been designed from the hull up with expedition in any clime in mind, her experienced officers and crew culled from the cream of maritime crop. And a team of experienced naturalists and staff had been assembled to lead us through the hostile, alien realm of Antarctica and beyond.
Sailing through the Beagle Channel and then across a benign Drake Passage we had been through the process of familiarization. Orientation and procedural matters were now behind us. After two days and nights aboard, sailing a due southerly course, we were primed for new, and perhaps life-altering, experiences. The wind was blowing harder, the air was getting colder - Antarctica was near.
In the southern distance, clues began to loom. Large, cathedral-like, icy forms punctuated the horizon. Smaller bergy bits and growlers began to speckle the sea. Below a brooding dark veil of low-slung clouds, Antarctica signaled her distal presence with ice blink. The central islands of the South Shetland chain, perpetually covered in ice, were reflecting the Sun’s rays, and setting a slice of southern sky, just above the waterline, aglow. A frozen land lay not far.
In short course the National Geographic Explorer was cruising slowly among the Aitcho Island group. These islands are small - too small to hold year-round ice caps. They stand out amid their large ice-bound brothers as craggy, low, brown bastions of rock, dirt, and verdant mosses. They are the perfect home for breeding penguins as well as their aerial nemesis’s - skuas, kelp gulls, and giant petrels.
Stepping ashore on Barrientos Island (largest of the Aitcho group) we were immediately struck by a bitter wind that cut through layers of wool and nylon with knife-like ease. It was cold enough to chill a comfortably-clad body and numb exposed skin. Such conditions serve notice – this is no place for fools or the ill-prepared. It took since time immemorial for the hardy denizens that call this frozen world their seasonal home to evolve and adapt. We are just visitors in this hostile environment, able to adroitly retreat to the warm womb of our mother vessel at any time. Burdened by the ancient conditioning of countless generations of ancestors dwelling in tropical and temperate climes, we were no long-haul match for these elements. Coupled as we were by an invisible umbilicus to a comfortable steel cocoon, our time here could be individually measured. Our own constitutions would dictate length of stay on Barrientos. To wit - it was our first landing; that alone would provide inspiration to shore up our personal resolve. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, many of us braved the unflagging winds for nearly the duration. The power of new discovery had lent us added strength.
The penguins here, both gentoo and chinstrap, were well along in their breeding cycle. Most gentoo chicks had completely molted out of their down, while the greater portion of chinstrap chicks were beginning their first molt. Adults of both species were well along in their seasonal molt – the last act for these birds in Antarctica’s seasonal play before heeding the call of the sea once more. Not even these hardy little animals can weather the crippling cold of Antarctic winter. The window of the great white continent’s summer was closing, and the wildlife here, following an ancient, instinctual script writ in their genetic code, was preparing for the long dark night that follows.
The beginning of a journey to strange and distant lands is often fraught with anxiety and trepidation for the neophyte or even seasoned traveler. Logistical questions invariably dominate. Beyond that, matters of cultural etiquette, regional sensitivities, and biological and climatic concerns come to the forefront as considerations. Homework is a necessary component of travel abroad, and leads the way, hopefully, to wide-scale preparedness. Once due diligence in planning has been paid to the best of one’s abilities, the rest must openly be left to providence and chance.
Antarctica is a place that grants folly no reprieve. It is ill-advised to travel there without comprehensive preparation. We had all placed great trust in Lindblad Expeditions and the National Geographic Society to safely guide us through our initiation to the Southern Ocean. The vessel, the National Geographic Explorer had been designed from the hull up with expedition in any clime in mind, her experienced officers and crew culled from the cream of maritime crop. And a team of experienced naturalists and staff had been assembled to lead us through the hostile, alien realm of Antarctica and beyond.
Sailing through the Beagle Channel and then across a benign Drake Passage we had been through the process of familiarization. Orientation and procedural matters were now behind us. After two days and nights aboard, sailing a due southerly course, we were primed for new, and perhaps life-altering, experiences. The wind was blowing harder, the air was getting colder - Antarctica was near.
In the southern distance, clues began to loom. Large, cathedral-like, icy forms punctuated the horizon. Smaller bergy bits and growlers began to speckle the sea. Below a brooding dark veil of low-slung clouds, Antarctica signaled her distal presence with ice blink. The central islands of the South Shetland chain, perpetually covered in ice, were reflecting the Sun’s rays, and setting a slice of southern sky, just above the waterline, aglow. A frozen land lay not far.
In short course the National Geographic Explorer was cruising slowly among the Aitcho Island group. These islands are small - too small to hold year-round ice caps. They stand out amid their large ice-bound brothers as craggy, low, brown bastions of rock, dirt, and verdant mosses. They are the perfect home for breeding penguins as well as their aerial nemesis’s - skuas, kelp gulls, and giant petrels.
Stepping ashore on Barrientos Island (largest of the Aitcho group) we were immediately struck by a bitter wind that cut through layers of wool and nylon with knife-like ease. It was cold enough to chill a comfortably-clad body and numb exposed skin. Such conditions serve notice – this is no place for fools or the ill-prepared. It took since time immemorial for the hardy denizens that call this frozen world their seasonal home to evolve and adapt. We are just visitors in this hostile environment, able to adroitly retreat to the warm womb of our mother vessel at any time. Burdened by the ancient conditioning of countless generations of ancestors dwelling in tropical and temperate climes, we were no long-haul match for these elements. Coupled as we were by an invisible umbilicus to a comfortable steel cocoon, our time here could be individually measured. Our own constitutions would dictate length of stay on Barrientos. To wit - it was our first landing; that alone would provide inspiration to shore up our personal resolve. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, many of us braved the unflagging winds for nearly the duration. The power of new discovery had lent us added strength.
The penguins here, both gentoo and chinstrap, were well along in their breeding cycle. Most gentoo chicks had completely molted out of their down, while the greater portion of chinstrap chicks were beginning their first molt. Adults of both species were well along in their seasonal molt – the last act for these birds in Antarctica’s seasonal play before heeding the call of the sea once more. Not even these hardy little animals can weather the crippling cold of Antarctic winter. The window of the great white continent’s summer was closing, and the wildlife here, following an ancient, instinctual script writ in their genetic code, was preparing for the long dark night that follows.
