After our long day going through the Lemaire Channel, we
head back north to Port Lockroy and anchor in the protected calm waters at 2am.
The plan for the morning is to visit the British former atmospheric research
site and current historical museum, gift shop and post office. The visitor
limit to the tiny building is 60 people so the other portion of the ship goes
to another Gentoo Penguin colony in the bay while waiting their turn to visit
Port Lockroy.
After getting a few items at gift shop, I step outside to a
sunny calm day and watch the chicks being fed right outside the doorstep. As
mentioned in our briefing by British staff, the penguins would nest inside the
buildings too if they were given permission. The British Antarctic Survey is doing
a study to see if the colony on the tourist side of this footprint of an island
are habituated and have the same reproductive success as the off-limits colony
out of view. So far, so good – having large numbers of people come by and stare
at you from 5’ away (they nest right next to the path) doesn’t disrupt their
breeding season.
I was reluctant to leave and took the last Zodiac back to
the ship. Then we went through the Peltiere Channel, a narrow, rarely traversed
area with a view of the Lemaire Channel in the distance, then looped back north
on the beautiful Neumayer Channel. We’ve only seen three cruise ships, three
research or military ships, and four sailboats on our journey, so most of the
time we feel like we have this entire area to ourselves. Visits to each of the
sites are reserved the previous summer in a special agreement by all of the
tour operators to ensure a special experience for all of the visitors.
The lack of sleep has finally caught up to me so after
leaving the most stunning areas, I head back down to my room for a nap. I
must’ve been exceptionally tired because normally my little iPod cricket alarm
wakes me up. It turns out I slept right through two announcements over the
speaker system that there were Orcas up ahead. My first knowledge of this was
when the marine mammologist on board happened to mention it to someone she met
in the hallway outside my room – 50 whales, super cool, you have to go up to
the bridge to see them. I zip right up to the bridge just in time to hear everyone
gushing about what an amazing experience it was and how the Orcas seemed to be
at play, swimming right under the bow multiple times. Ted thanked the captain
for handling the ship so well to enable everyone a great view without chasing
the Orcas. Arrrgggh!! How could I miss this??!! Arthur Morris, a professional
photographer, showed me his amazing photos that either made it worse (again,
how did I sleep through this) or better (those are gorgeous photos of the
whales).
The next day, we awake in Cierva Cove site of the Primavera
Argentinian base. They are conducting hydro-acoustic research and radio to us
to please not go too fast in our Zodiacs. As it turns out, we mainly putter or
have the engines off as two humpback whales feed at the surface all around our
boats for about 90 minutes. The running joke in our boat was that as soon as I
put my long lens camera in my dry back in preparation for relocating to the
shore of a Chinstrap Penguin colony, a whale would come and blow right next to
our boat. That happened about 5 times! Finally we all depart for different
corners of the bay. We concentrate on the penguins jumping to and from the
water and porpoising in flocks (pods?) all around us. As we head in, it begins
to snow, something we’ve seen nearly every day on the Peninsula.
The morning at Ciera Cove was spent moving slowly through
the heavy brash ice to explore different shapes and colors of icebergs, while
stopping by to photograph Leopard Seals and Crabeater Seals as we encountered
them. Their sleepiness reminds me of me sleeping right through the Orcas. Some
of the seals don’t wake up as we quietly motor around them, camera shutters and
focus beeps sounding nearly non-stop.
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