We’ve just spent the last 4 days in Antarctica cruising around the Antarctic peninsula. The track of our journey is represented by the yellow/green line shown in the image below. Even though it appears small, some of the distances between points are measured in hours.
The morning of day 29 we had our first views of the Antarctic peninsula. It was very overcast and we had just small glimpses of the land around us. Other passengers talked about how normal this was and maybe we shouldn’t expect any better for the next 4 days. How wrong they were!
Around noon, the sun came out and, at last, we were able to see what makes this land so magical: the mountains, snow fields, glaciers, and, of course, animals. We were lucky because we had good weather all 4 days!
To portray this land at it’s best, we decided to break this portion of the blog into several parts: Scenery, Penguins, Whales, Research Stations, and, Ice.
Today’s part is about Scenery.
Words cannot begin to describe the beauty and majesty of this place. It is so beautiful that it’s hard to think that in a very short time the weather can make this a very inhospitable place to be. It was on the warming side the first couple of days ( 37 degrees and above), then it turned cold as you expected it to be. We ended up wearing 4 layers of clothes!
One thing we did notice is that the Antarctic is not pure white. It is a lot of different colors depending on where you were and the amount of sunlight.
So turn your room temperature down to 30 degrees, turn on a fan, put on your parka and then look at the pictures below. Enjoy.
Ushuaia is a surprisingly large and modern city and proudly calls itself the End of the World (fin del Mundo). It has a population of 80,000 and is constantly growing. We arrived early in the morning and looking out at the colorful city, we could see a rainbow. This cruise is scheduled so we visit these cities during their summer. Even so, we have been amazingly fortunate in our weather. More than once, the locals have remarked that we have brought beautiful weather with us. Our day in Ushuaia was sunny, with blue skies. The air temperature was about 50 degrees F, which is picnic weather for these guys. Besides tourism, the industry in Ushuaia includes manufacture of electronics and other products. Ushuaia was declared a Duty Free zone in the 1980’s to encourage people and industries to move here. It worked. This port is one of the gateways to Antarctica. Next to our ship was a smaller cruise ship specifically designed to cruise in Antarctica. We could see several small inflatable watercraft, called Zodiacs, on the deck of the ship.
One thing I keep forgetting to mention is the change in sunset time. The sunset is generally around 9:30 p.m., however, looking out our window at 10:30 p.m. still seems like twilight. The sunrise is around 6:00 a.m. These long days are very strange for us. I can’t imagine living in this part of the world in the winter when the day is incredibly short. Our guide told us that the houses and buildings in Ushuaia are painted bright colors to counteract the depression that sets in when most of the days are grey and overcast. While the weather today is sunny, we were told to wait five minutes and the weather will completely change. During the day, we experienced wind and short showers, but mostly beautiful sun.
Today’s excursion was a bus ride through the town continuing to their national park and concluding with a ride through the Beagle Channel on a large catamaran. We have been watching for large wildlife such as deer and elk. We were told that what we will mostly see are birds. In this cold climate, there are few cold-blooded creatures such as snakes and lizards. During the bus ride, the guide excitedly pointed out two playful red foxes but we did not see them. There are also beavers and rabbits which are not original to the area, but have been introduced over time as a possible useful source of fur. Not surprisingly, these animals have harmed the ecological balance and caused damage. The beavers dam up waterways and drown the indigenous trees. Beavers are hunted by the park rangers to keep their numbers under control.
The catamaran turned out to be a large boat with three levels of seating. It was very comfortable and only two bus loads of cruise tourists were on the boat that could hold many more tourists. We could go out on the deck to take pictures. Moving down the Beagle channel, the guide explained the history of the channel and we came up close to islands of cormorants, nesting sea birds called petrels, a sea lion colony, and finally a lighthouse that some call the lighthouse at the end of the world.
When we arrived back at the dock after the 5 hour tour, there was still plenty of time to walk into the town, do a little shopping, and find a pizza restaurant with fast internet and tasty pizza. We ate and had a chance to do some badly needed updates on the computer. We saw a statue and several plaques talking about Eva Perón, Evita, and the post office had a special stamp commemorating her.
Shortly after leaving Punta Arenas we re-joined the Beagle Channel and traveled most of the morning thru the section known as “Glacier Alley”. There were 5 glaciers that we could see from the ship and a few others that were on side channels that we couldn’t see. Sadly as Paul mentioned in the previous blog, these glaciers have been retreating from contact with the water due to global warming. Crew members who have seen these over the years have said the changes were accelerating over the last few years. But, with all that being said, they are amazing to see.
Also amazing are the rugged peaks of the mountains where the glaciers are formed.
Our next stop was to have been the Beagle Channel city Of Ushuaia in Argentina. However, our Captain decided to bypass Ushuaia for now and continue on to Cape Horn. By doing this we could spend more time at Ushuaia the next day.
Cape Horn is the southern most point of land of South America prior to reaching Antartica. It is a very windy and rough water location and was the most treacherous point of any ship sailing around the tip of South America. Even a ship of our size listed significantly to the starboard as we sailed around the Cape. We completed the crossing and then turned back to the Beagle Channel and the trip to Ushuaia. We received a certificate signed by the Captain testifying that we had crossed the Cape.
Punta Arenas is the southernmost city on the mainland. We will visit Ushuaia, Argentina, in a couple of days, which is located closer to the Antarctic, but it is located on an island. You must take a ferry across the Straits of Magellan in order to connect with the mainland.
We are excited about today’s excursion because it will be our first real chance to see penguins. We are taking a speedboat to Isla Magdelena where there is a large breeding colony of Magellanic penguins. This tiny island is in the middle of the Strait of Magellan and was declared a national monument in 1982. These penguins breed in little holes dug out by the male penguins before the females arrive on the island. Each male penguin uses the same hole each year and breeds with the same mate as long as they both survive. Two eggs are laid and the adult penguins take turns fishing and caring for the eggs and then newly hatched penguins.
On the island, there is a roped off path that we are allowed to follow to the top of the island and back around the side to the pier. The visitors are all very quiet and the sounds of surf and penguins fill the air. If penguins look like they want to cross the path, we are to back off and allow them to pass. One penguin happened to be very interested in my shoelace, probably for nesting material.
There are 40,000 to 50,000 nesting pairs of penguins on this island as well as a large colony of seagulls. We were allowed to visit the island for 1 hour and then we took the speedboat to Marta Island where we saw thousands of cormorants on top of the island and a large colony of sea lions at the base of the island.
Coming back to Punta Arenas, we walked to the town square where it is lucky to rub the toe of a Patagon native that adorns a statue of Magellan. I also did a watercolor of two penguins in their nest.
Today are up early as we cruise by two glaciers, the Amalia and Brujo Glaciers (shown below) that looked very similar. In the Prinsendam, the captain was able to pull up very close to the glacier so we could see the beautiful deep blue color of the packed ice. Each of the glaciers we have visited has been receding, unfortunately. We did not see any significant calving of the ice, but it was wonderful to see.
Later in the day, it was pretty much a sea day. I completed a watercolor based on the scenes I observed walking around the Promenade Deck. The evening was Australia night for some reason. The dishes were interesting (and tasty) and the decorations were wonderful.
