Antarctica (day 46 - 49)

Day 46 - 49 (1st - 4th March)
Antarctica - Damoy Point, Port Lockroy, Jougla Point, Port Charcot, Pleneau Island, Lemaire Channel 

Waking before the sun after a night sleeping on Antarctica was a feeling I consciously tried to imprint. No one else had made any meaningful disruption to the snow for their camp, relying soley on the protection of low lying rocky outcrop to shelter from the wind. Colum and I were stubborn and had persevered with the snow shovels, which meant we also needed to backfill the 'graves' with the snow we had removed to return the landscape to the condition we found it. Once complete and packed up, we headed back to the landing spot, gave the expedition team a hand with kit and made sure they knew how very grateful we were for the effort and preparation they'd put in to make this work for everyone - organising a camping trip is quite an undertaking at the best of times. Throw in the preparation of 60 full sets of kit, the use of boats for access, the risks associated with -8 degrees temperatures and people who may not be that familiar with camping - its a lot. What an amazing first 24 hours in Antarctica.

We were greeted in the lounge with coffee and pastries at 05:30, then a few slipped away for an hours rest before breakfast was called (but I didn't bother, napping isn't really in my toolkit). The usual schedule of activities begun but with a slight twist, the guests were split into two groups with the intention of half visiting Port Lockroy on Goudier Island whilst the other half visited Jougla Point then switch afterward. UK Antarctic Heritage Trust who look after 6 historically significant British sites in Antarctica, manage Port Lockroy base and process some 70,000 items of post a year from 18,000 visitors alongside monitoring and recording data from the Gentoo colony they share the island with. Due to some structural issues with the museum on the island, the base was unable to receieve any visitors, so they came aboard Plancius instead and gave a lecture on the work undertaken by the base, as well as giving the opportunity to buy Antarctic souveniers, and send post from the base they would take away and process.

Port Lockroy was once the site of significant whaling activity in the 1900s, and many whale bones remain in the area as reminder of the hundreds of thousands of Humpback, Fin, Minke, Sei, Sperm and Blue whale that were brought to the bay and 'processed'. An assembly of bones have been collated on the beach as a reminder of historic times, whilst Gentoo penguins now hobble around them breeding and moulting.

Once back on the ship for lunch, we were taken to Paradise Bay for the afternoon where we had our first 'zodiac cruise'. After hopping on with Steffi from the boat launch platform lowered beside Plancius, we took a short trip along the coastline in the bright sunshine and blue skies (again), past the Argentinan Antarctic base - Brown (which has an amusing story about a doctor who burned the place down for love, but didn't get the girl and ended up in jail for his sins). We made a short landing on the actual continent of Antarctica (rather than the islands we'd visited thus far) which officially completed my footing on all 7 continents of Earth, then we set off again and spent 2 hours buddied up with Brian in the other zodiac. Within 10 minutes we'd spotted a few different pairs of Humpback whales and were able to observe them, get close and allow them to approach the boat in curiosity. It was an incredible experience to be sat silently in the water as they came right up beside the boat, and we learned a little of their behaviour. They feed by going deeper into the water then swimming to the surface with their mouths open, filtering krill with their baleen 'teeth' and swallowing approximately a tonne and a half a day. Their esophagus is only the size of a grapefruit despite the size of their mouths and 11-16m long bodies, so they wouldn't be able to accidentally swallow as much as a penguin. When they prepare themselves to make a deeper dive from the surface is when they are most likely to present their tail, a trophy of a moment to photograph, and we were treated to several opportunities in Paradise Bay. One of the coolest things was being introduced to an Arctic Tern, a bird native to the Arctic but migrates to the Antarctic every year during the southern hemisperical summer. It is the furthest migrating creature in the animal kingdom, and made an excellent job of giving us early warning of where the Humpback whales were about to surface as the tern benefitted from the Humpback bringing krill to the surface when they feed, giving them an easier time of getting dinner too, a remarkable thing to witness.

It was a more overcast and chilly afternoon towards the end of the afternoon so before everyone's digits fell off we returned to Plancius and had time to relax a litte before the recap session of the day and proposed plan for the coming 24 hours from Adam. Koen gave a photography workshop session on the light triangle, highlighting the importance of the functions and ensuring the settings of your camera are working for you in whatever scene you are capturing. The compromise between shutter speed, iso (sensor sensitivity) and aperture. Having been playing with SLRs since 2008, and knowing the importance of being familiar with whatever camera I am using to balance the light for different scenarios, it wasn't so much a technical workshop education for me but more of a demonstration of how to articulate the functions of photography well, Koen explained it very clearly and concisely. After dinner, the sunset put on a stunning display at the bow of the ship and gave chance for some chilly but atmospheric photos before I spent another hour or two on the bridge. I learned that the ship tends not to anchor in iceberg waters for a couple of reasons. There is a risk associated to remaining still in these waters from potential ice calvings on nearby shores, and from icebergs which could drift over the anchor or toward the ship putting it in a vulnerable position. Even at slow speeds an iceberg could cause fairly significant damage to the ship, so it tends to either sail very slowly (4kts) between sites at night, travel up and down the channel until its time to arrive at the destination, or drift but use the engine and winds to remain stationary. The waters between the islands and channels of the Antarctic Penninsula were between 100-700m deep so anchoring wouldn't have been possible at those depths annyway. As we had come over the Drake a few days ago we had passed over waters up to 4,800m deep which was an intimidating depth to be floating above. 

'Good morning, good morning, good morning' came over the tannoy from Adam's  warm voice the next morning, reporting the sea mist and that we were about to enter the Lemaire Channel, a 7 mile long straight which narrows to 600m between continent and island, often filled with icebergs. I got dressed and went up to the bow of the ship to watch the monochromatic scenes pass us by with low lying clouds adding a mystique to the occasion. After the call for breakfast, we settled near Port Charcot for a landing, but following a short delay were informed that the brash ice was too thick at the landing point so the zodiac's couldn't get to land. Plan B was to spend the morning in the zodiac's and trace our way through the dense iceberg fields. I boarded a boat with Elizabeth at the helm, accompanied by Anna, Vaila, the Meredith family, Chloe, and Erika - the A-team of company. The iceberg field was dense, and filled with stunning shapes and forms, as we could see how the bergs had formed, and rotated once their centers of gravity had shifted, revealing the scalloped faces and smooth surfaces. It was a peaceful and gorgeous morning, we found Crabeater seals resting after their feed with some of their dinner's remains laying strewn about looking like a murder scene on pure white ice, we saw Weddell seals, and watched as raft's of Gentoo penguins hurled themselves out of the water onto lower laying icebergs, before they all turned and shuffled off again, or ran up to the edge and stopped then all bailed and turned around again, or followed the zodiac with rapped curiosity, jumping out of the water all around us like flying fish. We spotted a Minke whale (distinguished by a more pronounced and defined dorsal fin) close by which was a rare sight as they don't surface as often as Humpback do . After a stunning and peaceful 2 hours amongst the icebergs and wildlife, we reluctantly begun to return to Plancius after one of the best mornings, grateful for Adam's Plan B. On our way back we spotted another raft of Gentoo playing on another iceberg and went to watch, they were such a source of joy. It reminded me of the lust for life and playful nature of lambs, bounding around with other lambs before they mature into sheep and their joie de vie leaves them for good. Penguins are the lambs of the sea and so much fun to watch!

After lunch, we were taken to land on Pleneau Island to see some more Gentoo penguin colonies. I spent the afternoon walking around with Vaila, watching the behaviour of penguins, having the priviledge of seeing parents traverse along penguin highways to their nest and feeding their young. It was the first and only time I spotted an Adelie penguin, which was stood on its own, moulting and looking worse for wear (but was just hungry and tired, waiting for its feathers to change). Speaking to Simon the birder, Adelie peguins are his favourite, he explained their curiosity and playfulness is more than the Gentoo, and they have a striking and stunning bright ring around the eye on an otherwise black head - a sight to behold - it was a shame the only one we saw was busy in its moulting phase and looked like it needed a shower and some fresh threads. The view point from Pleneau Island was out over the iceberg field we had spent the morning exploring in the zodiac, and as far as we could see for miles were bergs, calm and slowly drifting. On the very horizon, Vaila and I spotted huge bergs which would have been multiple times taller than Plancius, it was clear how vast this continent was, and we were only on the very tip of the Antarctic Penninsula.

Simon pointed out another species of bird we hadn't had the pleasure of meeting until now, the Shit Chicken. Its official name is the Snowy Sheathbill, it is the only land bird native to Antarctica, and it survives wholly by scavanging, whether that be the remains of animals killed by others, feeding on regurgitated krill, the unattended eggs or chicks of penguins, tapeworms, or animal feces - born to survive and without shame. Pleneau Island gave us another opportunity to see the colourful differences in algae that grows on Antarctica. We were used to seeing a lot of red material on the land which was mostly the feces of penguins from a krill rich diet which gave the stained rocks and snow a red tint, but there is an algae which grows in the snow of Antarctica and blooms in red or green during the austral summer, giving impressive striations in the snow. After a peaceful afternoon on the island we headed back to the landing point and were once again on the last zodiac back to Plancius.

That evening, after Adam's recap and brief for the following day, we had a lecture from the glaciologist Jakub on glacial formations and iceberg types. Having spent the morning in an iceberg 'graveyard' (or 'garden', depending on your level of morbidity), we were able to visualise more clearly the types we were shown. There are 6 official types of iceberg, but an iceberg itself is constrained by a definition. If the ice was formed at sea, it's sea ice (not an iceberg), if the ice has calved from a glacier, or ice sheet, it is an iceberg. If the iceberg is smaller than 2 meters, its known as a 'growler', if its smaller than 5 meters its known as a 'bergy bit', and anything bigger is a regular iceberg. There are 6 different shape types to an iceberg, a 'tabular' which is.. tabular shaped, a 'wedge', which tends down toward the waters edge on one side (and something we saw lots of Gentoo penguins playing on and off), 'dome' which is a dome shape, 'dry dock' which is when it appears two icebergs are separate but are in fact connected by ice beneath the water, 'pinnacled' which have pronounced peaks, and 'blocky', which is essentially a more equally shaped 'tabular' (closer to a cube). After the lecture we had another photography workshop session from Koen which focused on the impact and benefits of composition, describing the rule of thirds and framing images, looking for different perspectives, shooting from different angles, lower down, between objects to frame moments, the importance of telling a story with an image and rather than the photograph being a flat moment in time.

After dinner, Vaila, Anna, the Meredith family, along with everyone else who hadn't camped during the first session, were taken to Hovgaard for the night. As the ship took itself out of sight to give the campers a sense of isolation, the rest of Plancius was treated to an incredible sunset between some islands, surrounded by icebergs and Humpback whales. It was so peaceful you could hear the blow and inhalation of the whales in the channel taking deep breaths, and the sunset took over an hour to shift through the golds and oranges into deep reds and purples before disapppearing. I spent a bit of time with Anja on the front deck making photographs and just quietly watching the world fall asleep around the boat, listening to the creaks of ice from the shore.

The next morning was my chance to go mountaineering with Colum, so after breakfast we rendezvoused at the kit room to be adorned with a climbing harness before getting into a zodiac and landing on Hovgaard. We were late in the season for Antarctic excursions, so there had been much recent snowfall and lots of melt, which meant we were limited to climbing up to the first 'knoll' where there risk of encountering a crevass was lower. Once the 13 of us were gathered around the tarp at the shore, we got ready as Owain demonstrated how to fit the snowshoes we would be using. They were MSR shoes you slipped your foot into, pressed your toe toward the front then strapped the ankle up with the quick release strap, and you were good to go. They spread your weight over snow so you can walk comfortably without sinking, had crampon style spikes, and articulated at the ball of your foot so that as you lift, the portion strapped to your foot lifts, whilst the remainder of the shoe stays relatively parallel to the ground, stopping you tripping over your toes (now we were in clown shoes). We had to walk a little John Wain-esk, but it wasn't hard to get used to. The climbing harnesses were to allow everyone to act as a human anchor, if something were to go awry. We were tethered by dynamic rope to each other approximately 3 meters apart, and were to never bunch up, on pain of death (literally). If someone disappeared in the snow, the course of action was to stand still, the fact we were all tied together meant whomever it was would just hang in their new circumstance for a little while, but that it wouldn't get any worse, then (on this occasion), the other mountain guide (Narly if Owain went down, or vice versa) would effect a rescue. In 'normal' life when you aren't attached to 6 other strangers on Antarctica, but had gone off for an adventure with a buddy, you'd probably self-rescue if possible, or the other person would do the deed and return their mate to the top. The final instructions from Owain were to never stand on the rope as the crampon spikes could damage the core and render it useless, that it was that the responsibility of the person behind to keeping a 'loose tension' in the rope, and to never hold the rope. The reason we weren't to hold the rope is because it created an additional loop/slack in the rope which meant if someone fell, there would be an additional length of rope to give them further distance to fall, increasing the shock load and stress to every aspect of the 'human anchor'.

We set off up the hill at a steady pace, as I watched the two in front of me holding the rope and bunching up - I guess not everyone is brilliant with simple instruction. After 20 minutes of walking slow and steady to make sure everyone had the chance to tweak their pace and keep the slack correct (except the two in front of me), we stopped for a short break to take in the scenery. We were hiking up a rounded hill which overlooked the same ice 'graveyard' we had explored the previous day, but had a clear view of the mountains surrounding the islands and icebergs from our vantage point. We continued snow-shoeing up the hill with the second group following behind, led by Narly. After an hour of this rhythm, watching the rope ahead closely to ensure it didn't pull at the person infront, or drag low and snag their feet, we reached the top of Hovegaard, 218m up. We spent a bit of time standing still and silent, listening to how quiet the world was and looking out over the channel we had camped the previous night before we set off down to the waters edge, such a magestic place to be. The whole experience was completed within 2 hours, having only trudged 3km, but it was a fantastic to have been walking on deep snow and ice on an island in Antarctica. We were unclipped from the rope, removed our shoesnows and had a few minutes before our zodiac arrived from Plancius for our extraction. Seeing this as one of the few chances I might have to get a sunny photo in shorts on land in Antarctica, I ditched the overtrousers and harness whilst others faffed around with their gear, and found a spot to get a pic with the blue sky, ice and land behind me - it had to be done.

We arrived back on the ship with a bit of time before lunch and the ship began its journey north up the Lemaire Channel once again. Food was called but there were incredible views in every direction from the front of the ship as we sailed north under a striking bright blue sky with calm waters, so a few of us stayed to take in as much of the environment as we could. I had started capturing 4k videos on my mirrorless camera as well as photos, to help immortalise some of the experiences I was having on this trip, so I made a few videos of the calm passage through the channel, of the ice drifting by, the standing waves off the bow, and the distant mountains unmoving and adorned with snow. Eventually we went down for lunch, and had far too much fantastic food, again, as I begun to realise that perhaps I didn't need to try everything they presented every day, for breakfast lunch and dinner - the buffet dilemma. We arrived at Damoy Point by mid-afternoon, the scene of my Antarctic camping experience, this time to explore the 'southernmost waiting room in the world', and see some more Gentoo colonies. Damoy Hut; the Southernmost waiting room, was a historic little wooden shack, owned and maintained by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust after it stopped being used in 1993, as a place to hold up and wait for air transfer deeper into Antarctica. The hut was split into a sleeping quaters with 9 bunk beds, a 'foyee' (in the loosest sense, more like somewhere to enter and not let the cold into the rest of the hut), a small storage room with sink, and a kitchen/waiting area with bench and table, as well as basic kitchen. There were cans of custard, sugar, coffee, bovril, ovaltine, flour - eveyrthing you need for a historic party. A reasonably well stocked bookshelf of antarctic/outdooor/adventure books, and a guest book for modern day visitors to leave notes and messages for future guests. I left a note dated 3rd March 2025, in hope that perhaps someone I know visits and reads it one day (not holding my breath).

After having a mooch through the wares of the hut, I went for a wander to the lookout point at the top of the hill at a Gentoo colony and spent a bit of time watching a sailing boat make its way round the headland (with motor as there was no wind). Heading back to the zodiacs amongst the last to leave land again, we boarded then Plancius head gently out toward the sunset past the "seven sisters" - a range of 7 peaks in a row, something a few of the expedition crew had only seen once before because of cloud and weather. We were reminded by the crew aboard, how lucky this group were in terms of weather and clear skies/days.

The afternoon concluded with another lecture from Jakub the glaciologist, about glaciars and ice. There are two Ice Sheets in the world, one on Antarctica, and one on Greenland, defined as being land based and covering an area greater than 50,000 km2. Ice fields are interconnected networks of glaciars, of which there are a few on the planet and ice shelfs are platforms of ice which are formed on land and float on the ocean, but are attached to the glacier or sheet they are formed by. The final nugget of information which stuck with me was the existence of katabatic winds, which are a phenomenon formed by the effect of gravity accelerating unimpeded winds toward a lower altitude. The centre of Antarctica is approx 5km above sea level, and although there are mountains, they are covered by ice and snow, which creates a relatively flat surface between the highest points toward the sea. This topography means that the dense cold air is accelerated toward the shore by gravity, and can reach speeds of 180mph.

The next morning we were intended for a landing at Orne Harbour but the ice and sea mist decided otherwise, so Adam made the call for everyone to go on zodiac excursions, which tunred out to be an excellent decision. We set off from Plancius through the mist whilst the expedition team had to regularly check in and keep tabs on the location of Plancius as well as the other boats, as the mist was so thick. We head toward Orne harbour when we spotted a few pairs of Humpbacks on the surface, so diverted to get a little closer. The pairs of Humpback were very playful and curious, after turning our engines off and staying quiet in the boat to be closer to the serenity of the moment, they repeatedly came right up to us, breaching, diving deep and displaying their huge tails, swimming directly underneath us several times. I managed to get some footage by dunking my phone into the water (teathered to me with a homemade arrangement of karibiner and whipping cord, unlike another guest who donated his phone to the Southern Ocean when a Leopard seal got a little close a couple of days previously), then caught the moment 3 humpback whales breached right beside the boat. We were so close we could see their eyes taking us in as they circled and surfaced again and again. Intrigued by their blow holes I was eventually close enough to see clearly that they are the nostrel of the humpbacks, and despite being so large an opening, were actually quite small orifice' which answered my question of whether they could accidentally inhale a penguin (which do sometimes get incredibly close to the whales surfacing and swimmming about) - no, in short. That morning was the most Humpback-rich experience, made all the more peaceful and personal with the mist dampening the sounds and creating a calmness of the water. Each day had been significantly different to the previous, with the variety of activities, location, weather, environment and wildlife interactions making it tricky to properly articulate the feeling of luck and gratitude for everything we were seeing and experiencing.

I was interested in finding out why the members of the expedition team had chosen to work for Oceanwide. It was easy to see why the company had chosen to employ them as they were passionate experts in their respective fields, but they also chose the company, and to be involved in tourism of this precious environment. The responses I got largely centred around the benefit of education for the guests that the company attracted, the ethos of the company with focus on sustainably exploring the continent, and all of them indicated that if the day came the experience became more about "continent bagging" than opening the eyes and minds of those who came down here, they would distance themselves from it and couldn't justify the environmental cost anymore. The impact of humanity on the environment was something that had been threaded through multiple conversations between guests and expedition staff over the last week, and it very much felt that 98% of the people onboard appreciated where we were, and the need to protect and mimise the impact humankind has on the world, a dichotomy considering we were having an impact (albeit managed and small), just being there.

We made our way back to Plancius for lunch, then Colum and I readied ourselves for the afternoon kayaking at Neko Harbour. We were given wetsuits, booties, overjackets, and dressed warmly for the kayaks, with gloves, a hat and buoyancy aids to complete the look. We bundled into a zodiac then drove a little distance from Plancius to get a sense of remoteness and to help find some wildlife before we loaded into our kayaks. The kayak guide Alexis explained how to mount and dismount the kayaks from the zodiac (i.e. he held it as we fumbled ourselves over the side and into them), then we had a safety brief relating to Leopard seals. We would be accompannied by the zodiac which would hang back and keep out of the way, unless there was a Leopard seal around, in which case the boat would aim to stay between us and the seal, and if it got a little more spicy, we'd return to the zodiac and get out of the area. I clambered into the front of a tandem with Colum, and discovered that neither of us were brilliant at kayaking with the other. We'd both independently done a bit of solo kayaking in our time, but neither recently, and not whilst another person wastrying to steer and manage the boat.

After some teething problems with the dynamic, we tried one person paddling and controlling the boat at a time, which seemed to work a little better but still wasn't brilliant, maybe neither of us were destined to be tandem kayaking champions. There was a lot of brash ice in Neko harbour which made progress fairly tricky, and obscured a lot of water so spotting wildlife wasn't easy, but it was very calm/peaceful and quiet aside from the cracking and creeking of ice. After a little while we saw a couple of Minke whales then some Humpbacks, before travelling a little distance and finding a Weddell Seal resting on an bergy bit. After a few hours of paddling around in the Antarctic, we made our way back toward Plancius then dismounted the kayaks for the final approach back aboard.

With a few hours before debrief and dinner, I had a quick shower then went up to the lounge to tackle some of the photos I'd taken. The call for dinner came with the addition to wear something warm, and to meet at the back of the dining area. The staff had put on a BBQ on the rear deck of the ship, with accompanying mulled wine to sit out and eat amongst the elements. It was such a surreal place to be eating, with icebergs and seals playing in sight as I sat with a full plate of juicy BBQ food, sipping mulled wine at the bottom of the planet. After a second portion of bread & butter pudding, the food and tables were cleared away to make space for a dance floor which carried on late into the night. There was a fairly large crowd of people who danced late into the night - what an incredible thing to have added to the trip!