Brown Bluff, Antarctic Peninsula and Port Foster, Deception Island
Incredibly unusual ice conditions (for this early in the season) in the Weddell Sea have led Captain Leif Skog and Expedition Leader Tim Soper to opt for an additional day in this amazing tabular iceberg-strewn sea. The normally ice-packed seas adjacent to the Antarctic Peninsula have opened up and let the National Geographic Explorer run for the southern end of Snow Hill Island late last night! Our quest was to find the ever elusive emperor penguin, and we in fact found several resting on the ice in the late evening light.
The hoped-for dawn didn’t materialize as the grey light of daybreak at 3:30 a.m. showed that we were in fact under heavy skies with occasional snow flurries. We turned and ran north towards the continent itself, choosing to make a landing at Brown Bluff (our second Antarctic continental landing of this expedition.) The snow was almost blinding as we encountered 35 knot sustained winds, gusting to over 50 knots! The trip ashore was a complete success, as we all had the rare opportunity to witness both Adelie and gentoo penguins sitting on their nests, buried in snow so deep that only their tails and beaks poked out of the powdery snow. Sideways flurries gave photographers the chance to truly capture the harsh elements that these birds live in.
After lunch we ran north through Antarctic Sound, into the Bransfield Strait, and west to the South Shetland Islands for a stop at Port Foster inside the caldera at Deception Island after dinner. Disembarking at 9:30 p.m. we enjoyed the sight of the old whaling station converted to a British military then research station under a heavy mantle of snow. Gentoo and chinstrap penguins welcomed us onto the beach of the caldera itself, as pintado petrels and Antarctic terns wheeled overhead. A few brave souls amongst us actually chose to race into the water for an opportunity to take the “polar plunge” in the (relatively) warmer waters that the thermal activity of the still active volcanic crater provided. Finally returning to the ship at around 11:30 p.m. we brought the day to a close, many miles and even many more experiences away from our start at Snow Hill Island in the Weddell Sea!
