Antarctica (more photos)

A tabular iceberg. Tabulars are pieces broken off an ice shelf (permanent ice extending outwards from the edge of land around the perimeter of Antarctica). A non-tabular iceberg on the other hand is a chunk "calved" off from a glacier when it reaches the sea. So icebergs can have all kinds of unusual shapes if they come off a glacier whereas the tabular icebergs are flat topped.

This berg has upended itself at some point

it is easy to imagine the icebergs being shaped like animals or castles, like this one

Icebergs are usually white because they contain the whole spectrum of colours. The blue ice on the left is old ice that has been subjected to a lot of pressure, thus squeezing out all the other light rays except the blue.

These are called jade icebergs because they have been subjected to such pressure that they are like  glass with a bluish tinge

A snow petrel and berg

A dragon?

a flustered group of penguins as they suddenly notice the ship looming above them

These are birds, probably Antarctic petrels, resting on a tabular iceberg

A snow petrel, the prettiest Antarctic bird

And close up. Note the little drop of water on its beak. That is salt. The petrels and albatrosses have nostrils from which they excrete the excess salt which they ingest from eating seafood and drinking and living near sea water

A southern giant petrel---and they are certainly big!

A giant petrel morph. These white versions are quite common and the different colour does not seem to adversely affect their ability to function and catch fish

An Antarctic petrel and a snow petrel

a cape petrel, also called a pintado

An albatross--there are many different varieties but I could never remember them all

Two cape petrels, one showing its back and the other showing its underside

Another albatross--a sooty albatross I think

The colours in Antarctica are subdued and often monochrome, but there are  often subtle tones  such as this sky (totally unretouched photo)

Another sky. As you get further south the summer days extend to 24 hours of daylight but there will always be a time when the sun dips down to the horizon even though it does not sink below it

bergs at "dusk" on a 24 hour day

a sliver of  a new moon in the dusky sky

Antarctica (part 2-the journey)

We finish our Antarctica expedition tomorrow when we arrive back in Invercargill at the southern end of the South Island of New Zealand. We have been at sea for twenty days and sadly have had very bad weather and ice conditions so we have not had anywhere near the number of landings that we were expecting, particularly in Antarctica itself. This has been disappointing for us all.

But it has reinforced for me how huge Antarctica is, and how different West and East Antarctica are, even though both are locked in snow and ice. When I came to Antarctica in 2008 I went to the Antarctic Peninsula in West Antarctica, sailing from Ushuaia in Argentina in a Russian research vessel called the Akademik Shokalsky, with only 45 passengers. Once we were through the turmoil of the Drake Passage, where all the currents and winds of the Southern Ocean funnel through a narrow gap between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula, we had generally good weather and two or three excellent landings for 7 days of our 11 day voyage and wonderful wildlife sightings.

Not so lucky on this voyage unfortunately. We have only managed one landing in Antarctica itself (at Scott’s hut at Cape Evans from where he set out on his ill-fated journey in 1911/12 by sledge to the North Pole on the return from which he died) and two landings on sub-Antarctic islands (Macquarie which is Australian and Campbell which is New Zealand’s). More of all this later….

I first became interested in going to Antarctica when I saw a map of the continent from “underneath”. At school you will have learned geography from the usual flat maps of the world which only show in detail the big continents particularly those in the northern hemisphere with a little white frill at the bottom of the page which is labelled “Antarctica”. Even if you have looked at a globe you can’t really appreciate the size of Antarctica because the spike down the centre of the globe exits through Antarctica and spoils the visual effect. Antarctica is huge—one and a half times the size of the USA, twice the size of Australia and of Europe.

One hundred and seventy million years ago Antarctica was part of the southern supercontinent of Gondwana. It was located much further north and sustained plenty of vegetation and probably animal life too. Continental drift  split up Gondwana. South America separated from Africa, Australia sailed eastward . India drifted away northwards and tacked itself onto Asia. East and West Antarctica drifted south and stuck together. Now Antarctica is 625 miles from South America, 1375 miles from New Zealand, and 2250 miles from South Africa.

Eastern and Western Antarctica are very different geologically since the eastern part was most recently attached to Australia and the western part was most recently attached to South America. If you look at a contour map you can see that the Antarctic Peninsula on the western (left) side is an extension of the Andes and the Rockies, separated only by the narrow Drake Passage.

Fossils of vegetation and rocks similar to those found in other countries which were originally part of Gondwana, can be found in Antarctica. But now the Antarctic continent is 98% covered with a polar ice sheet to a mean thickness of nearly five kilometers. The Southern Ocean which swirls around Antarctica has a mean depth of 13,100 feet.

And Antarctica is pristine. Humans have left virtually no trace on the continent and the relics of the age of exploration at the beginning of the 20^th century look pitifully small. Even the modern day research bases of the various countries which are signatories of the Antarctic Treaty, are mere scattered lonely specks in the vastness. The purity of Antarctica is 

Antarctica is protected from pollution by the currents and winds which circle the continent, keeping out the plastic bags and oil spills and other detritus which mar most oceans these days. 

The currents and prevailing winds also isolate the cold into the area below the Antarctic Convergence (also called the Polar Front). In a relatively short stretch of ocean (50 km)the climate drops rapidly from the just north of the Polar Front where the sub-Antarctic islands enjoy a  relatively balmy and consistent summer and winter temperature of -1 to ₊ 6 degrees centigrade with very little snow, to the frigid temperatures of the Southern Ocean where the water hovers just above the freezing point of salt water (minus -1.86 degrees centigrade)  in summer and plunges to below that in winter when the sea ice almost doubles the size of the Antarctic continent and the air temperature falls to minus - 60 degrees. 

The winds and currents run in opposing directions (one clockwise and the other counter-clockwise) as you move further south so you pass through the Roaring Forties,the  Furious Fifties and the Shrieking Sixties, names which convey the fierce wildness of the winds and currents as you move into the most southerly latitudes. 

Antarctica holds 70% of the world’s fresh water (in ice form) and the currents circling the continent stir up nutrients which feed huge biomasses of krill, the mini-shrimp-like creatures which form the basis of the food chain for whales, fish, seals, birds  and penguins. And just as the penguins have adapted their bird-like habits and physical characteristics to the climate so have the fish. When Antarctica was part of Gondwana the fish in the oceans surrounding it were the same as for what became India, Australia, Africa and South America. However when Antarctica drifted south not only did its plants and land creatures die out but so did most of the fish as the waters got colder and colder and the sea plunged to its freezing temperature of -1.86 degrees. 

The only fish species to survive was a perch like creature which had the capacity to manufacture an antifreeze which enabled it to tolerate temperatures down to -2.2 degrees. Strangely this perch-like fish had no swim bladder and so it had no buoyancy and so any movement required a lot of energy. As a result the fish which live in Antarctica--of which the giant, very slow-moving toothfish is the best known--have all developed with this antifreeze-making ability and have no swim bladder. 

By the way, remember the craze a few years ago for so-called "Chilean sea bass"? Well it is not a bass at all. It is a Patagonian toothfish, closely related to the Antarctic toothfish. But would you really have ordered it if the menu had said "toothfish"? So clever marketing dictated a name change. But they are endangered so don't order them off the menu any more please.

There are very few land creatures---and even they are really more at home in the ocean: seals and penguins will come out of the sea and onto the ice floes to breed and rest and escape predators but their movements are clumsy and inefficient on land. All the predators are in the sea (killer whales and leopard seals), so the land is a safe haven and so penguins, although they are birds, have lost the power of flight. How different from the northern hemisphere!

And Antarctica is relatively protected from that Alpha predator, human beings. In an extraordinary act of selflessness (although with an ulterior motive!) all of the countries which could conceivably exploit Antarctica’s undoubted natural resources have signed the Antarctic Treaty which since 1961 has preserved the continent for scientific research and peaceful activities such as tourism.  

Of course to exploit the resources under a  mile thick ice sheet would require enormous expenditure for unknown returns. Most countries would not have the wealth or skill to participate in a race to exploit Antarctica. So there is an ulterior motive for most countries who are signatories of the treaty. By signing a treaty preserving the continent for science, each country saves itself money and successfully locks out its competitors, thus ensuring that none of their competitors can steal a march on them and exploit the resources.

I have plenty more to say about Antarctica, including about our visit to Scott's hut in minus 25degrees centigrade wind chill, but will put it in a future post and will get some more photos uploaded too. Check back later...

Iceberg in first-year pack-ice. This would be about 8/10 (that is the measure of the  closeness of the pack ice, while the age measure tells you about its thickness, with first year being quite thin. Never-the-less a ship needs to be very careful moving through even first year ice because most of the volume of the ice is below the surface. Even a ship with an ice-strengthened hull will be damaged if it hits a seemingly small chunk of ice if it has a large submerged "skirt" below the surface. An icebreaker does not plough through the ice---it rides its bow up on the ice and smashes it downwards with its weight

more pack ice. The water tends to be calm in the pack ice since the weight and thickness of the ice suppresses the waves

There are often seals and penguins on the pack ice.

The same seal, a "crabeater" closer up. They are fully aware that the ship is passing but they try to avoid getting up from their resting place!

Two Adelie penguins on the front floe and two Crabeater seals on the one behind

Who's looking at who?

Should we move?

A pair of Adelie penguins watching the ship go by

This was an interesting sight. The front two are Adelie penguins and the large one behind is an Emperor penguin, probably a young one just venturing out on its own and so feeling a little lost.

This is a Minke whale. We didn't see many whales--the Japanese whaling ships were about pursuing whales and themselves being pursued by the Sea Shepherd ships.

A glass of champagne in the hot tub in Antarctica

A tour of the bridge. The captain is on the right

The lawyers among you will find this interesting. This was on the wall of the bridge.

Ice cream party on deck

A tour of the galley. 

On the fore-deck on one of our very few nice days. 

This day it was sunny and quite warm, hence the open jacket and no hat

Antarctica (part 1-Macquarie Island)

The ship is currently threading its way through the pack ice as we try to find a path through into the Ross Sea so that we can land and visit Scott’s and Shackleton’s huts from their pioneering expeditions to the South Pole a century ago. Surprisingly we seem to still have internet access although not strong enough to upload many pictures. So I will load up the narrative now and the photos, as well as more of my Tasmania photos, when I get to New Zealand in two weeks’ time.

Macquarie Island

The ocean distances are vast, populated by wheeling sea-birds of many different species, small and large—there are 80 different species of petrels and albatrosses alone. Because the southern hemisphere has much less land than the northern hemisphere these birds are expert at coasting on the winds with their gigantic wings and they can stay at sea for years, only coming in  to land (clumsily!) to breed. 

Our first landing after three days at sea out of Hobart, was at the sub-Antarctic Island of Macquarie which is Australian territory and has an Australian research and weather station on it which is home to about 30 people who are there for 6 months to two years. It is now also a World Heritage site and Australian national reserve.

The sub-Antarctic islands are interesting since they are outside of the Polar Front, which is where the cold Antarctic currents meet the warmer ocean currents. The result is that they are snow free and quite green with a steady average temperature range between plus 1.6 degrees and 6.6 degrees and an abundant rainfall of 930 metres per year. However, at the same time the sub-Antarctic islands are home to an abundance of Antarctic wildlife which has chosen the warmer and ice-free land of the sub-Antarctic islands for breeding and moulting.

Macquarie Island has an interesting geology since, at less than 700,000 years old, it is very young (in geological terms) and is one of the very few places in the world where the tectonic plates have pushed up the deep mantle from the earth's core to the surface  above sea level. So you can see the internal magma which has been extruded like toothpaste from a tube between the tectonic plates and which hardened and then uplifted to the surface. Since the island is so young, it has not been subject to volcanic or glacial action or erosion. 

Macquarie also has coastal terraces of supersaturated sphagnum moss and kelp forming peat five metres deep. The surface is hilly and rocky and covered in green moss and low vegetation and there are streams and fresh water lakes. Because of the high rainfall and almost constant cloud cover and mist, the island has a strong likeness to Scotland.

However Macquarie has been subject to much destructive action by man. Because of its relative closeness to Australia and New Zealand it was an easy target for whalers and fur-sealers. When the whales and fur seals had been so reduced in numbers as to be uneconomical to hunt, the hunters turned their sights on the population of sea elephants which haul out on Macquarie to moult. 

They are huge fat torpedo-shaped creatures, weighing up to 3000 kilos, with large stores of blubber which enable them to spend months in the deep cold waters near the Antarctic continent, diving up to 2000 metres for food. When those reached dangerously low levels the hunters turned their attention to the seemingly endless colonies of penguins which breed on the island. The penguins were boiled (some say alive) in huge “digesters” for one pint of oil, to oil horse harnesses!

In the process of exploiting the resources of Macquarie Island, the hunters introduced many foreign plants and animals—rats off the ships, rabbits (for food) and cats (presumably ships’ cats introduced to keep the rats in line but which quickly became feral), as well as ponies, donkeys, sheep. 

By the time Australia belatedly awoke to the value of preserving the indigenous creatures and plants, the rabbits had eaten all the endemic vegetation and undermined to thin soil on the hills with their burrows, the rats and the cats had eaten thousands of sea bird eggs and chicks, and the seals and penguins had been decimated by the hunters. 

Over the course of the last fifteen years Australia has undertaken an extermination programme of hunting and poisoning the rabbits and rats ---I haven’t had the courage to ask how they eliminated the cats but they have gone too. It seems that now all these invasive animals have been killed and as a result the endemic vegetation including ferns, giant Macquarie “cabbage” (high in vitamin C and so sought after by sailors) and what are called “mega herbs” with large grey green spikes, are now recovering, in fact flourishing. The staff on the ship were commenting on how different the island already looks after only one rabbit-free season.

The elephant seals and penguins on the island also are recovering well, although fur seals and whales in the surrounding ocean are still at dangerously low levels.   

There are four kinds of penguins on the island: the King (which looks like a smaller version of the Emperor penguin which you will have seen in documentaries and films—very handsome with a sleek long neck, black back and white front and orange markings on the neck and head and bill and weighing about 15 kilos), the Gentoo (which we saw also on the trip I did in 2008 to the Antarctic Peninsula—the ones on Macquarie have orange not red bills and weigh about 5 to 8 kilos), the Rockhopper (a small, crested penguin weighing about 2 to 3 kilos,  which true to its name hops, rather than waddles like the other penguins and lives high on the rocky slopes of the island) and the Royal which is found only on Macquarie, all 1.7 million of them.

The Royal is also a crested penguin weighing about the same as the Gentoo, with long yellow and orange whiskers on the top of their heads. The Royals are found in ancient rookeries near the coast but elevated about 100 metres above sea level. 

Interestingly, the theory is that when Royal penguins first started to use Macquarie for breeding and raising their chicks the rookery was actually at sea level. Penguins are an ancient creature and were around before Macquarie (which as mentioned earlier is a very “young” island extruded from the oceanic crust) had reached its current elevation above the ocean. 

The King penguins incubate their eggs and chicks on their feet under a fold of belly skin, like their larger more southerly cousins the Emperors. However they have an unusual breeding cycle—they breed twice in every three years, so the rookeries on Macquarie contain year old chicks in their “Russian overcoats” of brown fluffy down , new eggs, and small chicks still nestling on their parent’s feet.

The day we arrived foul weather frustrated our attempts to land. But we remained in the lea of the island until the next day and then were able to do two landings, one at the base itself. Our ship, the Orion, seems to have a deal with the Australian government that the ship will transport the scientists to and from Macquarie in return for access to the base for its passengers, so we had an interesting tour of the base and of the isthmus it sits on, as well as scones baked especially for us in the base kitchen. 

In the afternoon we landed at Sandy Bay (black sand), further down the island where there are huge rookeries of King and Royal penguins where we saw chicks, moulting adults, grooming each other  and mating, all in a smelly, squawking mass of penguin-hood. And then as we sailed away from the island in the evening we skirted Lusitania Bay which is home to over a million King penguins, so many in fact that it is impossible to land since the beach is blanketed with penguins for several kilometres. Ironically, in the middle of this sea of penguins in Lusitania Bay there are three of the “digesters”, rusting away: Penguins 10, humans 0.

Antarctica is like nowhere else on earth for seeing wildlife since none of the birds or seals or penguins have any land-based predators (except man!). That is in contrast to the Arctic where you see much less of the wildlife because of their (justified) fear of the polar bears which are an alpha predator. 

And so you can walk slowly and quietly amongst the penguins and if you sit down they will come up to you out of curiosity to inspect you in your unusual plumage of red parka, and peck at your boots or your camera lens.  Even the skuas, the huge brown birds which are the hunters and carrion eaters of the Antarctic, seem to have no fear of humans and apparently if they decide you are fair game they will zero in on your camera lens which they think is a tasty eye. 

Similarly the elephant seals, which lay in great heaps on the beaches and in the tussock grass, will ignore you—although if you get too close they can move remarkably fast and can give a nasty bite apparently.  It is not for the fastidious though. Penguin colonies are smelly places and it is all too easy to slip on the large ribbons of kelp and land in a puddle of ____.

And so now we are on our way to the main continent of Antarctica and into the Ross Sea. We have been at sea for four days since leaving Macquarie and I think we have another day or two before we reach a landing. We are now well and truly into the Antarctic region –check back in a few days for more updates and (eventually) for photos.

an elephant seal wallowing on the beach amid the tussock grass while he moults

A zodiac landing of passengers from our ship

Me on Macquarie Island. Fashion is not high on the priority list in Antarctica

Some King penguins in conference. Note the piles of kelp in the background on the black sand

King penguins on Macquarie Island with our ship in the background

A King penguin chasing a skua away. But the skua will not go far. They are extremely persistent, waiting for any sign of a weak spot which will allow them to move in for a kill and a feast.

Part of the ancient Royal penguin rookery

The "digesters" in which the penguins were boiled down for their oil

And this is where we are now, in the pack ice nearing the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

MORE PICTURES OF MACQUARIE ISLAND

Me all bundled up on Macquarie Island. Actually it was not at all cold---it was far colder in London!

Gentoo penguins in the foreground amongst the tussock grass, some new breed of red penguins  behind them and  then to see and the jagged volcanic rocks of the coast of Macquarie Island

A moulting gentoo penguin. He looked really fed up

King penguins marching onto the beach from their fishing trip

A skua, eating a dead penguin. The skuas are fearless, persistent, scavengers and predators. They sit next to the penguin colonies waiting to pick off a weak or young penguin--the hyenas of the Antarctic.

A nice comfortable wallow for the moulting elephant seals

A female elephant seal ready to head out to sea for a snack. The females are much much smaller than the males. The males have a huge nose like a shortened elephant trunk and weigh up to 3000 kilos. The females have a regular, quite pretty face and only weigh between 300 and 900 kilos (!)

A swimming king penguin. They love to "porpoise" diving and surfacing around the ship.

This is pillow lava from the undersea formation of Macquarie which was then squeezed up to the surface through a rift in the continental plates. ( Also bull kelp, which is found all over the beaches)

This is the so called Macquarie cabbage, one of the indigenous plants which are reestablishing themselves now that the invasive rabbits have been exterminated. Apparently it is rich in vitamin C and so was sought after by sailors and whalers to prevent scurvy

March of the red penguins across Macquarie Island

A phalanx of elephant seals with gentoo penguiins behind and bull kelp in front

These are rock-hopper penguins. True to their name they nest on the steep and rock-strewn slopes of Macquarie and we couldn't get close.

King penguins teaching the young to swim and hunt in the sheltered rock pools

Penguins are very curious and unafraid. These king penguins will come right up to you if you sit down at  their level

This is a king penguin rookery. The brown ones in the front are year-old chicks in their "Russian fur coats" of down which they will soon shed as they grow proper feathers underneath.

Note the tiny chick sheltering under its parent. The king parents  incubate their egg on their feet and keep the new chick fed, warm  and safe on their feet until the beginning of the winter.Then they leave the chick to fend for itself over the winter and return to it in the spring.

The parents will still feed the year old chick if it has survived the winter on its own.

Royal penguins, found only on Macquarie Island

This is the royal penguin rookery. They have a  crest of yellow and orange feathers (see previous picture)

These are royal penguins. The young are different from the young of the kings in that their "Russian  fur coats" are greyer and they have a white front.