Day 22- At Sea in the Drake Passage

Sunday January 29, 2012

Last night we returned from dinner to find a gift in our cabin - a hardcover Antarctica Log Book with maps, information on research stations, the Treaty, the fauna ..etc - just a wonderful gift - which had this special gift card from Captain Mercer that said:

"The prologue of your Antarctica Log Book embraces what we are all soon to discover: " Even today, in times when it seems there is

nothing new to seek, it is possible to stride in the footsteps of those brave explorers who led the way." 

Prologue: 

" The time of great explorations is over. Man has conquered even the uttermost parts of the Earth.  But is it really so? There is still one place in the world that preserves intact its pristine mystery.  The White Continent Antarctica.  A hundred years ago intrepid adventurers set out to explore this frozen, dry, windswept land.  Their stories are stories of passion, hardhsip, tragedy and heroism... The longing to discoer what is beyond rach is as old as mankind; a yearning stronger than any fear or insecurity. Even today, in times when it sems that there is nothing new to seek, it is possible to stride in the footsteps of those brave explorers who led the way.  Not only by living the adventure, but by putting down in words the indelible account of an odyssey which is undoubtedly, the ultimate journey"  

That was the perfect beginning to this extraordinary part of our journey.  It is a privilege to visit Antarctica, and we know that we were going to be among the only less than 400,000 people  who have ever  paid a visit to this pristine, and some would say sacred part of our earth.  The feeling on the ship today had definitely changed - and we sensed the collective feelings shared by our fellow passengers that the next week would be incredibly special. Even those returning for their second and third time are palpably excited. 

I told you that we had several new speakers onboard, and we attended two excellent lectures, namely :

1.Overview of Antarctica, where John Splettstoesser discussed wildlife, tourism, science program,s living and working in the interior, environment, whaling, comparisons with Arctic, exploration history, Falkland Islands and South Georgia.  Just outstanding information from a person who has worked as a scientist in the interior of this vast continent 

2. Southern Ocean Marine Mammals and Birds - where Bob Hoffman discussed a variety of flying birds and penguins, seals, and cetaceans - all which we are hopefully likely to begin to see today .

Of course - that became true almost immediately as people saw whales, and penguins.

We had all been a bit fearful of crossing the Drake Passage - but although it was certainly a moving sea under our feet, we thought the weather was being very kind, and knew we were now entering unpredictable weather.  John had told us what our target agenda would be for the 3 cruising days - and warned us that we might have to alter course, that fog could hamper viewing, and weather could change in a minute, so we would have no hard and fast agenda.   The biggest change for most of us was the drop in temperature.  Those of us from northern climes were still outside walking on the deck, even with windbreakers, others were wrapped in blankets, dressed in fur and boots - and it was still well above freezing.  Our target was to be by Elephant Island , by 5:30 in the morning, where Shackleton and his men were marooned and rescued in what is truly one of the most famous and amazing survival stories of all times.  This would mark our entrance into Antarctica.

At dinner  we and our table mates plotted our strategy for Monday - what time should we stake out a base camp? Where should it be located? What did we need?  We settled on the Crow's Nest, centre, so we could easily go outside to the Sports Deck which is also on 9, or to the bow below if it opened.  We needed blankets and to be dressed for the elements, and to be there for 5:30 a.m., as we thought most every other passenger would have the same strategy.  The ship would provide coffee and pastries at 6 a.m., pea soup at 11, and consomme at 2! 

The fog had already set in, the fog horn was blowing (by the way it goes off every few minutes not every 20 as I thought the night before), and the captain thought we might not make the island till 8 - but we wanted to be sure of a spot for 6 of us.

Lights out before 11!  

Take Note:  When I was designing my plan at home for how I would do this blog, I  found this wonderful site by a not for profit international organization that's mission is to provide a central clearinghouse of information on the world geographical and political areas.  I provided the overall link to you under " Neat Links" which is located on the right hand margin of my blog.  I had intended to provide you with individual links from the this site for each destination.  The limited  and painfully slow access to the Internet means I can't provide those details, as it just takes too much time and money - BUT -please take a few minutes to go in and find the link to Antarctica and any other ports of call that interest you .  For those of you with the luxury of free Internet  - it is well worth the time spent as there is a wealth of information about our ports of call.  I will concentrate on providing you with what our impressions are, and what we learn on board.  

For your viewing pleasure I am enclosing pictures from our sail - away from The Falklands last night and a map that Barry shot with our camera from our Log Book with the areas marked in squares of where we will cruise..  Looks very tiny, but the scale is huge.  The USA fits inside Antarctica like a little country or state.   For our family - thanks for your emails, it meant the world to us to hear from you.  

Below - the Star Princess

Day 22- The Falkland Islands

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

Friday night when we went to bed headed for The Falkland Islands, we had entered bigger seas and we could feel the ocean swells as we drifted off to sleep.  It was a long night though - as our fog horn blew every 20 minutes  for what seemed the entire night - but I never looked at the clock.  I kept thinking it was time to get up as I had an early tour.  We finally decided at 6:15 a.m. to get out of bed as we expected to make land by 7:30.  

I am not sure why I hadn't really understood how beautiful these islands would be, but in spite of the rugged, barren nature, they are truly captivating.  The day was a stunning one.  

I think we all thought we were suddenly going to freeze to death, or be soaking wet from rain, so most passengers were overdressed - and I was one of them.  Bruce the cruise director announced as we dropped anchor, that the outlook was 70F - What? as I stood there in the atrium wearing long underwear, my cross country ski wear, AND clutching my winter coat, mitts and hat!  But we had been told, like New Zealand, we could experience all four seasons in a day, and that last year they had mud, rain, and howling winds, so we were prepared.

This is a tender port, and for the 3rd time this year there were two cruise ships in port - ours and the Star Princess.  The latter is a much larger ship than ours, but given the population of the island is only 2000 people, you can only imagine what happens when double that population disembarks for the day! - First of all there is only one small pier, secondly, every available driving person is pressed into service for the various tours, and  the availability of these limited tours is divided between the two ships.  

Barry and I had elected to go on two separate tours due to his spinal surgery.  He went to Bluff Cove to see Magellan Penguins - and I went to Volunteer Point to see King Penguins and Magellans.

The only city of these Islands is Port Stanley - and we couldn't see it till we were approaching by tender.  Situated on the East Island, it is in a natural small cove harbour.  Picture the city (really just a town) as the body of a crab, and the legs and pincers forming the  sheltered cove.  Our ship was anchored outside in another larger harbour.  The tender took about 20 minutes and upon approach, I felt as if I was home in Newfoundland, Canada, except for the obviously British style buildings.  The homes are simple, neat, white, with red or green roofs.  By now, at 8:15 a.m.,  the sun was out, and it promised to be a gorgeous day.  

Volunteer Point

I was met by John, a British expatriate who had come to the island on a 6 month contract in 1991.  We had been divided up into 4x4's with 4 of us in each.  I spent the day, with 3 new people - Chuck and Marilyn from San Francisco Bay, and John, from Sydney - and we had a great time together and had the biggest adventure of all!  We were told it would take us 2 hours to get out to Volunteer Point and that the last stretch would be true off roading over rough terrain - Ok we were ready! (or so we thought).

The "paved" roads, were rough enough, then they turned to gravel, which explained why the windshield of the vehicle was completely cracked. As we soon learned this is one rocky land.  Our driver John, is a plumber who was pinch hitting for the day, and said he hadn't been out to the point for a while... and we were the lead car by quite a bit.  Ok a small bit of concern was expressed with raised eyebrows.  About 45 minutes into the trip, on a road where the gravel was small rock size, we had a sudden loud bang, from the left rear of the vehicle - which I knew was the tire. Sure enough, when John brought us to a stop, we all hopped out and saw the most incredible sight - our tire was completely shredded cleanly all around.  He kept saying, I can't believe it, this is a brand new tire.   He hustled out and started to try to change the tire - but he didn't have a carjack.  Other 4x4's were whizzing by - obviously not part of his company - but it surprised us that they didn't stop as we were truly in desolate country.  Finally someone stopped, with a car jack, and within 10 minutes they had the tire changed. The other cars had left, along with the car jack.   There was only one problem... we could see that the probable cause of the shredded tire was a metal mudguard that was bent and scrapping the tire - and would soon shred the spare tire, and we didn't have another one.  John mangled it some more, and told us that we were only 2 miles from the farm - and rallying point.  So on we plodded alone - no one in our car too happy about our safety at this point.   In another 20 minutes we crossed into the farm which is the private sheep ranch on which Volunteer Point is situated.  The first buildings we had seen in an hour were here.  You have to picture that this is a treeless island - covered by peat, rocks and and low scrub grass, and all that was visible of human habitation was dozens of 4x4s convoying up hill and down dale across the landscape.  We found our convoy and hopped out.  

The wind was tremendous here and we all felt like we were going to be blown away, and we quickly put on our warmer coats - hair flying wildly in all directions.   Two of us went to our group person and said we wanted to make sure someone fixed the metal hanging down, and that we wanted to travel in a convoy from here on.  Well this is the wild south - and 3 of the local guys, with tire irons in hand wrested that metal mudguard right off the car for good, and we were off over the rough part of the journey.  Thank goodness it was not raining or we would have been up to the window ledges in mud.  

Someone told me we were at the half way point - and it was only 10 km - but this part took another 1.5 hours!  No road baby - just over the land - on some tracks sometimes -- down steep banks that looked like we would drive into the sea, then, sharply turned to the beach - and back up another steep embankment.  I, the whole time, was thankful that Barry was not on this trip - although I wished I had a titanium plate in my spine for the trip.  The landscape was vast large sweeps of open land, with distant bowls of hills, that looked like rivers of gravel spilling from them ( that gravel was really large boulders), and valleys leading to the many inlets of the seas.  We had learned about these old volcanic flow formations in a lecture... the rock is turned on its side completely. 

The Falkland Islands have a lot of inlets, and therefore with very few roads, to get from point A to B, you either go overland or by water and you certainly cannot go as the crow flies.  I have brought Mandlebrot's books on fractals on my Kindle, and think this island is a perfect example of fractals. I will let you know if I am correct, when I read it.  John told us that the it rarely snows here, and the weather is pretty temperate year round - but what they have to contend with is wind.  By the way, all the locals had bare arms, some shorts, and all of us had winter clothes on.  They seem pretty hardy here.  They import almost everything except mutton - lots of sheep and cattle here -  the big ranches are run by a handful of people each.  No fishing trawlers go out to get the daily catch, and so unbelievably the local famous fish and chip restaurant imports its fish from the UK! Lots of squid here, so calimari is a big menu item. When it snows they don't plow the roads, unless there is a big plane coming in. Prices are, as you can imagine, very high for everything, and when they get visitors, like today, it is all hands on deck to take our money - as it should be.  Also given there are no trees they burn the peat for fuel.  We also were warned and saw the fenced off and well marked buried land minds from the 1982 Falkland War between Argentina and the UK which were planted in last desperate measure by  Argentina - shame on them a this goes on for generations.  We remarked it was a good thing we hadn't absentmindedly stepped back into one while the tire was being changed, as we weren't even thinking of this still being a war zone. Luckily the penguins are two light to set them off. 

Finally there was a height of land ahead, with a line of cars riding on "flatter" ground and the open sea in the foreground and suddenly we were at Volunteer Point - 12:00 p.m. - and we are told we have till 1:30.

Volunteer Point  has the largest King Penguin colony outside of Antarctica, with 1000 birds. They are the second largest penguin, with distinct, grey, black and orange markings.  Very handsome indeed.  There is also a large colony of Magellans - hard for me to measure by eye, but seemed even bigger in size - and there is an obvious advantage to this site as the magnificent sand beach forms small dunes with burrows that are hardened and in which the chicks can hide and get away from predators and the weather. 

I had to take in the scene to get oriented as it was a bit of a circus - I had thought my private tour would offer a small exclusive group - Ha Ha - way more humans than penguins  literally sweeping in waves over the site.  There were marshalls to keep us all in our respective territories, and we had been told - no flash on the cameras, you cannot approach a penguin, but they can approach you,  and no feeding.   I grabbed a bag lunch and headed for the Kings, and my friends Lynn and Erika who was taking pictures on my behalf as Barry had our camera.  I miraculously found them.

The penguins seem unconcerned with humans - and they are quite independent little beings, although the Kings are not so little.  It's like "I think I will go down to the beach, through all these humans, and go for a swim" .. and off he goes.  We also saw lots of weird contortions by a few weird humans trying to entice the penguins to touch them.  Someone told me that one of the Princess passengers had a 6 month old baby who was crawling in the poop amongst the penguins - honestly no brains there. 

We were lucky enough to see one male with an egg and Erika got some great shots of him repositioning it.  The Megellans are moulting so there was lots of fluff around and lots and lots of penguin poop.    One little side note we learned about Emperor Penguins who we will not see - they are the ones in March of the Penguins - those males stand for 90 days or more in the worst conditions on earth keeping their eggs warm, then once they hatch they march back to sea to feed which is over 100 miles.  But if the last days were not bad enough, they then spend 30 days moulting and the biologist said they feel like we do when we have the worst flu ever.   Please never send me back as am Emperor male penguin.   

Before we left Rowan thought I might want to take her King Penguin Sunset to Antarctica with us to visit his pals.  Rowan I took some pictures for you that you can show Sunset as that is as close as he might get. 

There was a very interesting vegetation on the beach - a large sea succulent with orange flowers.. probably holds the sand from erosion.

I was back in time to catch the 4:30 tender.  Over to Barry for a description of Bluff Cove and Stanley. 

Bluff Cove

After we tendered to Port Stanley I waved goodbye to Jane and joined a group from our ship who had tickets to the Bluff Cove Penguin Reserve.

Jane's trip description warned that people with back problems should not go to the much farther Volunteer Point  reserve because of the rough terrain.  Because there was no mention of such a hazard going to see penguins at the Bluff Cove site I thought that if I wanted to see penguins that was the excursion for me.  We started out in 10 person vans and soon were on a long flat gravel road into the desolate island.  After a while we stopped at a roadside depot to transfer to 4 wheel drive Land Rovers, each carrying 4 persons.  

Because I am tall I took the left front seat, the vehicle being a right hand drive.  Almost immediately we went off road across open terrain of bottomless peat, which was up and down like a giant washboard.  We really did need the 4 wheel drive almost all the time as we were in rut after rut up and down.  I had to keep my neck very tight because of the whiplash effect of the rapid undulations.  This went on for several miles until we reached the beach where we saw lots of penguins, among them KING Penguins which Jane had gone so far to see.  I saw lots of those birds in their formal dress.  This little fellow came right over to see me and seemed quite at ease.

Here are some of the Kings I saw going about their business.

I think that chap with his head way down low had an egg underneath him.

During this whole scene the wind was blowing about 50 mph so I was glad to find their tea room for a wee spot with the best home cooked lemon loaf which Hattie (the owner's wife) had baked.  Then we re-assembled to our Land Rovers and returned across the peat bog the several miles to the main road to Port Stanley.

Port Stanley 

I had time to walk around the small town and see some of the sights.

.

The church picture above shows the sculpture made of the jaws of two Blue Whales, from the old whaling days. 

Sail Away

Everyone felt windblown, but elated with such a bracing day, after the heat of SA.. and the sun stayed with us for the sail away.  They have the plaid blankets out on deck for us - so Erika, Lynn, Barry, Pauline and Mike and I sat out on the back Lido deck enjoying the sail-away sitting in the sun, drinking in the vistas and hearing about Mike and Pauline's adventures and dreaming about our next 5 days in Antarctica.   I got a nice movie of a beautiful beach with some penguins and a lighthouse - which might be the last one we see for awhile. 

Dinner in the dining room, was really enjoyable.  We laughed about a lot of things and compared notes on our day.  We were going to attend the movie on the Scott Expedition, but chose to go to bed and get up early instead.  

Days 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 - Sick and then Well Again

Friday January 27th, 2012

I am sure you are wondering where the heck I've been this week!  I am sorry to say that Buenos Aries and Montevideo were a bust for us as we came down with the dreaded GI illness commonly known as Norovirus.  It hit Barry first, very quickly, right after Sunday night dinner - he had gone to see Doc Severinsen's last gig, but came back to the cabin early with indigestion and a tummy ache.  After a bad night of moaning I called the infirmary and Holly, the most wonderful nurse appeared within 10 minutes.  A shot in the backside, helped him.  As this was our first day in BA, I stayed back wanting to make sure Barry would not get any sicker.  Holly told us that this GI was sweeping through, and that Brazil was always a test for them.  She said it was so contagious, even though we have been scrupulous about washing our hands etc.  We learned that it was working it's way down our corridor!  By the next morning I had it too.  If there is anything to be thankful for it is that neither of us progressed to the violent vomiting and diarrhea that comes with it, although we both felt very very sick.  Holly was surprised to hear that we had taken the live virus Dukarol, that they cannot get in the US, and told us that of all the people who were sick, we were the only two who didn't have the V and D, and thought it was due to Dukarol.  Other Canadians we have met have raved about this drug as well. For once Canadians have something the Yanks don't have first!

I was in bed, not quarantined, for 2 full days, and on really light duty for the third, and only today beginning to eat normal food again.  You have heard of the 1000 calories a day diet?  I have been on the 1000 calories a week diet!!!!!  That is one way to lose the weight from all these great cruise dinners, but not one I'd like to recommend.

Before I move onto another topic I want to praise HAL for the way they handle these infections.  We have had excellent medical attention (at a price) with excellent meds, and HAL has a special cabin steward cleanup crew for sick people.  Our own cabin stewards were fussing over us, and so many noticed we have been missing and making a fuss when we have returned to our regular routine.  The entire ship has been on code red for 3 days, which translates into no self service in the Lido at all, no hot tubs, no self service laundry, no library; They also have been disinfecting the entire ship.  Captain Mercer has sent out complete full disclosure letters to all of us daily, detailing precautions, state of the ship and today says it is contained.  Both of us are really sorry to have missed these two great cities. but since The Falklands and Antarctica are such highlights we wanted to be well for them, and we are ... because tomorrow we  tender in to The Falklands.

Another whole team of lecturers has landed and again all Ph.D, high calibre - geologists, marine biologists, political scientists - outstanding.  Some will onboard from the research stations in Antarctica.  Today we attended 3 lectures.

The Captain's wife, Karen also boarded in BA, and she was at painting class today and is a delightful person.   Barry and I opted out of the formal night last night, to focus on wellness, and just as well as half of our table had been invited to the Captain's dinner in the Pinnacle Grill - to which we will also be invited  at some point during this cruise. We continue to meet very interesting people, and have become friendly with a couple from Tweed, ON, who travel everywhere by all modes - like riding their motorcycles 18,000 km from Canada to the tip of SA, Ushuaia, where we will be next week.  They showed us their verandah suite today - bigger than ours for sure! Next winter they have already rented an apartment in BA for 2 months.

What I can tell you about BA and Montevideo is that we journeyed 162 km up the Rio de Plate overnight to get to BA.  We had on board 2 pilots from BA, as it takes longer than 6 hours to get up the narrow navigable channel.  On the return, yet another pilot also was needed to bring us into the very narrow channel of Montevideo.  It is a busy harbour.  Once we left there we set sail in the open high seas for The Falkland Islands - some 1000 nm.   What a difference we have noticed in the sea: the water is darker, the swells are greater and today lots of white caps.  Last night we really noticed some big waves.  Although we are told this is a moderate sea, the barf bags are out at the elevators for those who don't tolerate this.  The weather is definitely colder, and sometime over the next few hours we will hit the polar front in the sea which is a large area extending from Antarctica and the temperature will drop again.  It is sunny and beautiful.  The Captain of the Watch told us yesterday around 3 that there were whales and seals on both sides of the ship, and Barry thinks he saw evidence, but it is hard to get your perspective out here.

Tomorrow for the only time on this voyage we will split - I am doing the King Penguin Tour to Volunteer Point on a private tour and Barry is forgoing the really rugged terrain which is not good for his neck for another penguin colony.  You can feel everyone's excitement as we near this environmental area of the tour.  The lecture on The Falklands was interesting:  no trees, only one town (Stanley), peat land, and the pictures look like Newfoundland to us.  

Sorry to disappoint everyone with no great tales today - but the main thing is we are both well, and ready for the next leg of our cruise.  I am uploading some pictures which we have taken these last few days.  Erika's and Jeff's blogs do full justice to both cities and we gave Erika and Lynn our tour tickets to dinner and Tango which they thoroughly enjoyed.  Erika taped the entire event for us - so maybe I might put up some shots later.  In the pictures - the Veendam was in BA docked across from us - she has been to the Antarctica and back twice this year from BA.  She was the first ship we ever sailed, to the Arctic, and although she has been updated a bit, it was nice to see her!  Most of the pictures are of Montevideo, and the last two, were taken today of the sea - and let me tell you there is a lot of sea in this world.  These sea pictures do not really capture how white capped it is and how big the swells are .. but it is a very different sea today from any we have seen thus far.