Penguins, Orcas, Humpbacks and crashing into an Ice berg!

11th January 2009

During the night the boat traveled to Deception island from Devil's island. We traveled through the Antarctica sound into Bransfield Strait. By the time i woke up the boat was anchored at Bailey's Cove, Deception Island. Bailey's Cove is known for its population of Chinstrap Penguins, 500,000 at last estimate. What is fascinating about this island is the penguins build their rock nest high in the hills and are constantly making a long and tedious trek back and forth for food. It is also known to be a very difficult place to land any kind of boat to because of the surf, however we got lucky and the winds died down just in time to get us on the island. We ended up a little wet but it was well worth it.

I spent two hours walking around the island and observing the chinstraps. I saw several skuas (predatory sea bird) kill several chicks and steal eggs from nests. The skuas also nest on Bailey's cove-smart since their food source is there as well. I also saw my first glimpse of the pale-faced sheathbill, a bird that looks like an all white chicken. It is a scavenger.

I noticed that some of the penguins were sitting on eggs. It was way past egg laying time, but many were hoarding eggs that rolled down the hill. These were juveniles who didn't know any better than follow their instinct to take care of these abandoned eggs. There was even one penguin who had chosen a rock about the size of a chinstrap egg to incubate.

These penguins were the smelliest, dirtiest and loudest of all the colonies so far. Their white was covered in mud and pink guano. They had also created little penguin highways. One of the naturalists said "Penguins, white means they are heading towards you and black means they are heading away from you". That was right on. I also saw a chinstrap penguin that was all white. it isn't albinism but a condition called Leucistic. Supposedly there have been studies that have shown that these individuals are just as successful as the normal pigmented birds. I have a hard time believing this since they lack the counter shading that helps them catch prey and avoid predators. I also observed this individual being attacked more than any other penguin i observed.

As we were leaving Bailey's cove we encountered 6 Orcas or Killer Whales. They swam near the boat for a while but never really showed them selves. after lunch we headed through Neptune's Bellow's a beautiful thin strait that was surrounded by volcanic mountains and beaches. Deception Island is a sunken Caldera. Its last volcanic activity happen in 1970.

***What is a caldera?***

Next we found ourselves at the old Norwegian Whalers station. Decreptive buildings, whale bones, whalers cemetery and several tanks were left there to slowly deteriorate. I immediately noticed the steam coming from the edge of the water near the beach. there was still heat coming up from the caldera making the water at the edge very hot. The beach is made up of volcanic ash and rocks. The entire area is protected so no one is allowed to go ashore.

After the Whaler's Cove we headed to a cove called Pendulum Cove. Here we were allowed to go ashore and swim! Yup a few of us put our bathing suits on and went to the waters edge. The active caldera was heating the water and beach. Stepping in it felt like a warm bath since it was mixing with the cold Antarctic water. I swam 6 feet out from the edge and hit that freezing water. Needless to say I swam back as fast as I could to get back to that warm water.

Once all of us who wanted to swim got back to the boat the captain announced we were heading south to go to Lindblad Strait. We hit that strait at about 9pm (remember it is light out until midnight and it never gets really dark). It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! I felt I was sailing in a fairy tale land covered with blue and white icebergs. The water was like glass and we could see the krill at the surface which explained why we saw so many humpback whales.

12 January 2009

All night we traveled to Anvers Island. We were a little behind so we didn't get there until lunch time. After lunch I had a choice of kayaking or going to see another Adelie colony-I picked penguins! So, we went to Torgensen island. Palmer Station scientist are using this island to conduct a study to see if tourism affects the penguins breeding success. They split the island in half and tourist can only go on one half of the island. They have found that there is no difference between the side that doesn't get tourists and the one that does. but, contrastly the Australians have done a similiar study on the west side of the peninsula and have found that tourism has decreased production of chicks. so, I guess they better do some more research.

Not only did I get to spend some time with the Adelies but I also came across a female elephant seal, my first. She was sun bathing on the rocks, totally unaware of us. after only 45 minutes on the island we went for a tour of Palmer Station. It is a small research station with just 45 people total. Their research varies from marine mammals to the largest land animal in the Antarctic, the flightless fly.

On our return back to the ship we noticed several seals on ice bergs so we got up close and personal with crab seals and leopard seals.

The Palmer station people came onto our boat to have dinner and chat with us and are even going to travel with us tomorrow to the Lemaire Channel, otherwise known as ice berg alley. We will also hit Petersen Island.

I will write again on Wednesday. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.