Into the Ice: 26/1/2012

Out on deck: the M/S Expedition

Our passage towards the Antarctic Peninsula becomes increasingly ice-filled with every passing moment. Dispersed cubes have changed to broken-up brash ice and bobbing growlers, which have now begun to fuse, turning the horizon from a swelling ice-blue sea to a disjointed view of bobbing white pancakes.

The sea becomes choked with ice as we near the Antarctic Peninsular

Mesmerised by the sea-ice, it's become impossible to stay inside the ship, just in case you miss a particularly large berg, the parting of a perfect sheet, a reclining crab-eater seal or a sun-bathing leopard seal.

Nothing but ice...and penguins

Zodiac Ice-Cruise
So far, Zodiac cruises from the ship have been an opportunity to feel the thrill of speed, as we've opened the throttle and planed across the waters, bouncing over white-caps and clutching onto the safety rope with the wind whipping at our faces. But today's Zodiac ride administered a silent  and more concentrated dose of adrenaline.

The journey to the Antarctic Peninsular

We had to wait for the ice to be cleared before we boarded the Zodiacs - a ceaseless job breaking up the ice-pancakes and propelling the floes away with a continually running Zodiac engine. With a pool just large enough for us to gain a little momentum, our boat began pushing through the porridge-like slush, pausing every now and then to lever the larger pieces of ice aside with an oar or to shove the bow, when it became wedged on the ice.

Zodiacs wedged on ice

Pushing through the ice

As we forced our way through the choked waters, transfixed by the endless landscape of sculpted ice and bobbing plates, we cruised within metres of lazy Weddell seals, whose soft-looking flanks bore the red scars of whale attacks and whose pale fur made a halo of light around their cat-like faces as they twitched their black-whiskered noses and blinked back at us with ice-frosted lashes.

Seal City

Sea kayaks venture out

For the first time on our expedition, we cruised on the Zodiac without our usual whoops and cheers, listening instead as the icy breezes carried the gentle chorus of  gentoo penguins, the slosh of the reflective waters between and beneath the ice-plates and the murmur of our engine or splutter of the propeller as it became choked in ice.

Zodiacs make a slow journey through the ice

The ice-clad M/S Expedition

This blog-post forms part of a series of adventures experienced on-board the M/S Expedition in January 2012, whilst on an Antarctic Cruise - The Spirit of Shackleton - courtesy of Gadventures

Elephant Island 23/1/2011 - Morning Landing

Not quite the James Caird

The first thing we looked for this morning was Shackleton's landing spot, but with sheer rock faces,crumbling glaciers and little more than a scattering of pebbles at their base, just how did Shackleton's 28 men do it? We had to use our imagination here, as Matt - our Assistant Leader - explained that the island had altered somewhat in the past 100 years, and the exact spot where the crew of the Endurance made camp had since been submerged. Today's calm seas and bright sunshine also gave a poor reflection of the crashing waters and bitter winds that swept Shackleton's men here in 1916 yet, despite our more favourable conditions, the inhospitably of this desolate chunk of rock was striking.

Living with ice at Elephant Island

Elephant Island is, in fact, so inaccessible, that it's best explored via Zodiac cruise. Today, Point Wild - the four-months home of 21 of the Endurance's crew members - is marked by a memorial to Shackleton and his men, and fiercely guarded by an army of plucky chinstrap penguins. Rightfully named after Shackleton's right-hand man, Point Wild was under the command of Frank Wild; with Shackleton and 6 crew members en-route to find help in South Georgia, Frank Wild motivated and organised the remaining team to ensure that all men were sheltered and safeguarded from the Antarctic elements, that seal blubber was in supply for lighting the blubber lamps, fuelling the stoves and insulating their clothes. Realising how vital his role was in maintaining the morale that Shackleton so famously fostered in his men, Wild wrote in his memoir:

“We gave them three hearty cheers and watched the boat getting smaller and smaller in the distance. Then seeing some of the party in tears, I immediately set them all to work.”

Chinstraps at Elephant Island

Shackleton's memorial: Wild Point at Elephant Island

With Shackleton and his men in all our thoughts, we navigated around the island's rocky shoreline watching chinstrap and gentoo penguins hurl themselves into the water like handfuls of jelly-beans tossed out to sea, and then catapult themselves back out of the swell to land upright and feet-first on the grey-black rocks; we cruised out to a colony of chinstraps who were ambitiously occupying a sculpted iceberg, and watched as they tried to propel themselves onto the steep-sided sculpture, onto to slide back down and back into the icy sea; we gazed at the crumbling face of the Endurance Glacier, waiting for a chunk of mouthwash-blue ice to calve into the water, and listening as dismembered blocks resounded like gunfire and echoed through the bare rocks and gaping cavities of the ice, whilst all around us the sea was alive as the ice fizzed and crackled in the water, like popcorn. Escaping the acrid wafts of seal and penguin guano, we rode the mounting waves back to the M/S Expedition, leaving our thoughts of Shackleton's starving men on the barren rocks of Elephant Island, as we returned to our ship for a sauna and four-course lunch.

Sea caves at Elephant Island

Chinstrap penguins and fur seals guard Shackleton's memorial at Elephant Island

Chinstrap colony on ice at Elephant Island

The M/S Expedition and Zodiacs explore Elephant Island

This blog-post forms part of a series of adventures experienced on-board the M/S Expedition in January 2012, whilst on an Antarctic Cruise - The Spirit of Shackleton - courtesy of Gadventures

New Island - Sat 14th

New Island

Penguins! Our first landing was on New Island; one of the Falkland’s smaller chunks of quartzite rock. The archipelago’s most westerly inhabited island, New Island lies to the far east of West Falkland and is home to unique wildlife and an astounding rookery of rockhopper Penguins, black-browed albatrosses and Antarctic Shags.

Rockhoppers at New Island: First landing on Spiritr of Shackleton  Antarctic cruise

Stepping off the M/S Expedition for the first time, we travelled to the shore via Zodiac, and made a wet landing alongside a rusting wreck, guarded by rooks. We ambled across to the windward side of New Island, stopping where the cliffs gave way to a rocky amphitheatre, populated by hundreds of rockhoppers. The squat little penguins glowered as we approached, fixing us with their fierce red eyes – if it wasn’t for their ridiculous, yellow spikey hair-dos and hilarious two-footed hops up and down the rock-face, they would have seemed almost menacing. The rockhoppers’ fluffy grey chicks squawked loudly in their pebbly nests and, at just 5 weeks old, they were close in height to their parents but their fuzzy coats and downy wings bore little resemblance to the white torsos and black wings that characterise the mature rockhoppers.

Chilled-out Chick: New Island 

Sharing the same cliff-face were one the Antarctic’s biggest birds; the black-browed albatross have a wingspan of around 2.5 metres, which they enjoyed displaying as they made a big show of flying over our heads and crash-landing by their nests. Alongside the rockhoppers and albatrosses were a few hundred shags, characterised by their electric-blue eyeliner and golden-yellow face markings. But as we watched the shags nibble their young in conical nests, the penguins hop and squabble along the cliff face and the albatrosses swoop and soar above them, a menacing and uninvited guest lurked on the fringe of the rookery; bloody-faced and beady-eyes, the skua is a keen enemy of nesting birds. Active predators of eggs and chicks, these dirty-golden slayers have frequently capture penguin chicks, despite weighing in around 5 times less.

Albatross' nest alongside rockhoppers and shags at New Island

This blog-post forms part of a series of adventures experienced on-board the M/S Expedition in January 2012, whilst on an Antarctic Cruise - The Spirit of Shackleton - courtesy of Gadventures

A bumpy ride

The M/S Expedition disembarked Ushuaia at 6pm yesterday (Thursday 12^th), with just over 100 passengers and 50-odd staff members. Destined for The Falkland Islands, we’ve skirted the eastern end of the Drake Passage and are now headed north-east. Scheduled to arrive in the Falkland Islands tomorrow morning (Friday 13^th), we’ve been briefed on Falkland history and birdlife, as well as how to dress ourselves in the mud-room and board our boat-to-shore vessels, or ‘Zodiacs'.

M/S Expedition departs Ushuaia for the Spirit of Shackleton  Antarctic cruise

Followed by albatross at our stern, dolphins were spotted this morning and the bird-watchers amongst us have been on-board for much of the day, peering through binoculars and extra-long zoom lenses. But for many, - myself included - the rough seas have been too much today and several hours have been spent watching the horizon soar and plummet through the port-holes of our cabins. Anti-nausea tablets are slowly taking a hold of the situation now and we’re beginning to find our sea legs but we’re all welcoming reconnecting with terra-firma tomorrow…

Safety onboard the M/S Expedition


This blog-post forms part of a series of adventures experienced on-board the M/S Expedition in January 2012, whilst on an Antarctic Cruise - The Spirit of Shackleton - courtesy of Gadventures