My 18 Mind-Blowing Days At The Edge Of the World: Antarctica
I'm standing here on the seventh continent, Antarctica, actually at the end of what has been an incredible trip that has just been cut short. More on that later. I cruised with Silver Endeavour. It's my third trip to Antarctica and there was 183 of us on board. The itinerary I chose included the Falkland Islands in South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. So why don't you join me where the trip all started in the Falklands.
So I'm standing here, or walking here, in a very wind-swept new island in the Falklands, the first stop. We headed off here at 7:20 A.M. It was about a kilometre or so walk back up there where there is, I guess it's a rookery packed full of rockhopper penguins, albatross, really quite magnificent, good kind of induction as we build up to more and more wildlife. I was lucky to be one of the first to get out and up. So I actually had some pretty good views of the penguins.
Well, it's rather windy up here and you may have noticed that I am a little bit sweaty. I've been hiking, I think coming up for about two miles now. We're in a place called West Point, another part of the Falklands, and I'm really hoping this walk is worth it. So we came into this very beautiful bay and then set off on the walk. It's about
two miles to the penguin colony. Here we go. I think we're getting nearby. Again, it's rockhopper penguins and there's about 14,000 breeding pairs of albatross here, apparently. It's always interesting because you have all these albatross and the rockhopper penguins all just mixed up together, but they're basically all around these cliffs here. So now there's a rather nice little surprise because at the farmhouse, people who sort of manage this nature reserve, they've laid on an afternoon tea for us and you know that I love my afternoon tea. So I'm heading off that two miles to the farmhouse to hopefully enjoy some nice afternoon tea.
We've sailed 143 nautical miles to come to this place. One of the clues is that title of the road there, Thatcher Drive, along with this bust that you'll see here of Mrs. Thatcher here. So obviously Mrs. Thatcher is somewhat of a hero here in the Falklands and in Port Stanley. There's lots of signs of her around.
So we did a very unusual thing for an expedition is, because this is more of a tourist place, instead of doing expedition type stuff where actually there was options of a number of tours like the battlefields tour, a couple of hikes... A car going past, very disrupting when I'm talking. So there was a couple of kind of tours like that. I decided since I've been here before, to skip that and actually come and have a stroll around, like there's a memorial here to the war in 1982 with 10 plaques with the people that actually died from the British side as such. It's a rather beautiful memorial.
This is South Georgia. It is extremely windy. It's about 60 to 70 miles an hour winds. We have been chased by a storm down here. We actually got to South Georgia faster than planned, almost a day faster in fact. And the plan was we were going to try and do some landings, particularly in Salisbury Plain, which is the famous plain, but it was just too windy and dangerous to go out.
So we tried another spot, again, too windy. So we're sheltering in this bay here. It's a rather gorgeous bay with these incredible glaciers and stuff around. It's really cold out here and hopefully tomorrow morning the wind will die down. It's now around 14 hours since I last recorded that, and it just shows you how dramatically things change here once you head down into Antarctica. So it's now the
morning. As you can see, it's blue skies, no wind. It's quite warm in relative terms now. I think it's about six degrees Celsius or so. So the good news is we're going to be heading out on two amazing landings. So let's go and join me on the first one.
You'll probably hear behind me lots of excited chitter-chatter amongst the sounds of the waves and the animals squawking away. We're on a landing in Possession Bay. There is quite a big colony of king penguins. There's some fur seals, some elephant seals, and it's just great getting up close.
Of course, we're supposed to keep a distance from the various animals. The penguins especially are particularly inquisitive, so they do tend to come kind of close. But this is a magnificent place because you've got these beautiful glaciers. You've got a bit of a hill up there that we climbed up to for a bit of a viewpoint. Not so cold. It's about six degrees, wind's building up. So hopefully it doesn't build up too much so we can actually make the next stop. When people think of South Georgia, they think of where I am now really. Salisbury Plain, it's probably the most famous of all the places. Now it's extremely windy, so I'm hoping you can
hear this. That's why I'm cupping the microphone in my hands. So I hope this kind of works. But it is an incredible plain. As you can see, it's very open, which is also why the wind comes gusting through here. But it has around 60,000 breeding pairs of king penguins, apparently the second-biggest colony on South Georgia. A lot of elephant seals on the beach and you can see the massive change from just this morning where we had blue skies where it's changed really fast.
Again, the penguins are incredibly inquisitive. They keep coming up to people to see what's going on. So I'm really glad we made it here because this is kind of like an iconic place to come and visit. But magnificent, just seeing these rows and rows and clumps and clumps of these king penguins all over the place is just brilliant. Well, in the ever-changing weather situation in Antarctica today, it's very cloudy, it's very rainy, but no wind. So behind me is a clue to where we are today. This is actually a call into probably the most important historical commercial part of South Georgia. It's Grytviken.
Carl Anton Larsen, who was a Norwegian sealer and whaler in 1904 created a whaling station here in Grytviken and it was to get oil. Oil was used that time for street lamps, for cosmetics. This actual site only closed in 1966 or the mid-60s because the demand for well oil plummeted also. There was more a sense of ecology and conservation. So according to the small museum that's here, around about 400 men would work here during the season down to 90 in winter and 175,000 whales were killed in the waters around South Georgia when the whaling industry was operating here. 175,000, it's mind-boggling. Also here in Grytviken is where the South Georgia government has a scientific base, has some of the admin here and there's a museum and a shop. Grytviken is also renowned because this is the resting place of Ernest Shackleton. His grave
is actually here. He actually died right here in Grytviken when he was heading off on another expedition and his wife wanted his body buried here. There was a ceremony toasting "the boss" because that's what everyone used to call him. So it was quite remarkable seeing his actual grave. So near and yet so far. So behind me is Gold Harbour. Obviously very windy, which is why I'm cupping the microphone here. It's just too choppy, too windy to land, which is a pity because it's
our last chance of landing here in South Georgia. So we are going to hang around, see if the wind dies down, which is unlikely, and then perhaps do some scenic cruising through some fjords. So we arrived at Drygalski Fjord and it was completely foggy, overcast and not at all great. So we hung out for quite a few hours and then suddenly at about four o'clock in the afternoon it all lifted and it just cleared up. It's piddly cold out here. I'm on deck six and hopefully you can hear me. It's very windy, it's very cold, because it's gorgeous glaciers. So
it was well worth hanging around the day hoping that this would kind of pass. Quite magnificent. So it's two days, 682 miles and choppy seas since I last spoke to you. We're now here at probably one of the most significant historical parts of Antarctica, which is Elephant Island. So just behind me is a place called Point Wild. This is where Shackleton
left 20-odd of his men for four and a half months while he sailed away to South Georgia where we've come from, to try and find help. So they had to sit there for four and a half months over winter. We're going to head into this very beautiful glacier-covered area where they had to basically survive for four and a half months. They ate penguins all the time and that's really important because penguins are a big source also of vitamin C, I discovered. So they didn't get things like scurvy.
Also, here is a sculpture, a bust to the captain that actually brought the ship down here to rescue the men. Later on this afternoon we're going to be heading to another spot on Elephant Island where hopefully it'll be calm enough where we can do some Zodiac cruising. I probably look rather cold because basically I am. So I'm just back from what you can see
behind us is Cape Lookout. So Cape Lookout is the south part of Elephant Island. There are chinstrap penguins. There are, again, Gentoo penguins. We saw a couple of seals there, a couple of birds. And we did a Zodiac ride around here. It was really chilly. It's about -2 Celsius, but obviously when you're out there with the wind it's more chilly, even with loads of layers. It's more your face that gets cold. When you see brochures for Antarctica, it's often this kind of scene that they show you, which is blue skies, loads of ice, loads of snow, and of course loads of wildlife.
So we are here in this picture perfect place, which is called Robert Point. We're a little bit further south in the South Shetland Islands. It was an early start. I headed out at 7 A.M., so obviously the third group to go out and we started with actually a Zodiac
cruise around the bay here. Very beautiful. But what's important about that is I had five sightings of humpback whales, probably about three different whales and that was really magnificent. Then we've come on land, got about an hour or so here. What's interesting about this spot is you obviously have elephant seals on the shoreline as you often do, and then you have fairly large colonies of gentoo and then chinstrap penguins. What's interesting is the gentoo are sort of more near the shoreline and the chinstraps are right up on top of the hills and it's interesting seeing just how far. They're so far away from the water's edge.
So this is a very beautiful spot here. We've got about an hour or so here. Then we're heading off further south down the South Shetlands to another site, which is very infrequently called on because normally the weather prevents you to. So hopefully you make that and I will see you there hopefully. We travelled about 42 nautical miles. It took about four hours or so to get here because in this area you can only go two knots because of the risk of whales and damaging and disrupting whales. We have landed in Deception Island, however, not where people normally go in Deception Island. When I've been here before Deception Island, we've actually gone to the caldera where a volcano was and that's where there used to be whaling ships in the day there.
But we were able to, because of the weather land, in a place called Baily Head and the expedition team were incredibly excited to get here because this is where the biggest colony of chinstrap penguins are. There's at least 100,000 chinstrap penguins here, at least 45,000 breeding pairs, and the noise is unbelievable. So once you head over that way, which behind there, the hills are just full of penguins. Now what's incredible is the beach is back there and they then travel all the way from the beach up these huge hills. It's just insane how far they go and the noise they
make is a call. So when they come back from feeding, they're able to find their partner or their chicks once their chicks are eventually born. So each one has an individual sound. A lot of you have asked me, is it smelly? It's actually not smelly. Now, it could be because we're in the beginning of the season, so there's obviously snow. The penguins haven't been here that long, but they are just incredible creatures. It is a chilly -2 degrees Celsius, but we are in the Antarctic Peninsula probably with what most people associate Antarctica with, which is these soaring massive big mountains. They're covered in snow, they're covered in glaciers, they're covered in ice,
blue skies, sea ice are breaking up in the sea around us. It is absolutely magnificent. This is one of the most famous places to come and visit in Antarctica for its scenic beauty. It's called Wilhelmina Bay. Now, when we arrived here this morning after having
picked through the sea ice, we went out on excursions. When we went out, you didn't even see these mountains because they were covered in clouds. The clouds have now lifted. On this expedition, we sailed between the sea ice, which is breaking up, which are very flat pieces of ice and the various icebergs that are broken off from things like the glaciers.
Sea ice is very interesting. It's very flat. So this whole bay in winter is completely solid and it now breaks up. But these very flat pieces of ice, they're probably about a metre or so thick, but they can be as thick as two metres and apparently you can land a plane on here when they are two metres thick. I'm not sure I'd want to land onto those, but apparently that is what you can do. When we were out today on the Zodiac, we had one of those classic expedition little surprises where there was a Zodiac hiding amongst the various icebergs where they had glühwein, they had hot chocolate, which you can have either with or without Baileys.
That's always quite fun when you're doing these little expeditions out on Zodiacs when they have those little treats. So this is Wilhelmina Bay. We're heading off to another iconic site this afternoon nearby in this area, and hopefully we're going to make it because the sea ice is still quite thick for this time of year, so it all hinders whether we can dodge the ice. So hopefully I will see you over in Danco Island. Well, we did make it to Danco Island. That did take longer than planned because of all the ice that we had to fight through. It's an incredibly beautiful spot here.
Just to remind also that you do need to be pretty agile and active, because there was quite a steep landing. We had a clamber up sort of bit of an ice shelf, and it's been a really long trek. Now I've only come up so far to the first level. There's another level way up there and dotted all around here are gentoo penguins. As of yet, I still haven't actually stepped on the continent of Antarctica on this trip because Danco Island is where we are now and actually behind me over my shoulder there is the mainland. So we haven't actually stepped on the mainland yet. So apparently, hopefully we're going to do that tomorrow because it'll obviously be a pity to come all the way down here and not actually have stepped on the continent. So fingers crossed for tomorrow. Rather good surprise when we were heading back from Danco Island, we had an hour of Zodiac cruising and we spent that whole hour basically just watching humpback whales. It looks like there's two different whales based on their tails, but they were
really close to the Zodiac. So they're basically feeding up and down, up and down. It was fantastic. Got to see them go up and down maybe 10 times at least. That was rather a good surprise. Considering it's not really peak whale season, we've been incredibly fortunate with whales. So that's very exciting. One of the mistakes you can make when you come to Antarctica is spend all your time taking pictures and forgetting that sometimes you just need to stand and look and soak it all in. Niko Harbour is a really good example of that. There is this magnificent glacier behind me here.
Then there's a sprawling colony of gentoo penguins. Now, Niko Harbour, like many places in this area, was originally discovered, found by Gerlache, the Belgian explorer. He named it Niko after a whaling ship that used to operate in this area. So it's very atmospheric today, it's snowing. We're moored out there. I'm actually in the first group out here at 7:30. So it's really great because we're really seeing pristine stuff, not lots of people around. They're all behind me. But it's just sometimes important to just sit quietly and look, listen to the sound and the silence. That's one of the things that's
amazing about Antarctica is just the silence of the place. Don't know if you heard the silence? Again, Niko Island sort of proves the point about the importance of being relatively fit and active. It's quite a big hill that we're climbing up here and I'm only halfway up to the first level. There's another level way up there. Some people have already turned back because they're just worried about the steepness of it and the ice, et cetera. I'm probably sounding a bit out of breath. But if you can climb up to get these views, it is quite incredible.
A few people have asked me, knowing that this is my third time in Antarctica, if I've become a bit blasé to it. And absolutely not. Every experience in Antarctica is different to the time before. Every single cruise coming to Antarctica is different because it's driven by nature, it's driven by ice, it's driven by what's happening. So I've been,
for example, to Niko Harbour every trip and this experience is completely different to the others. Although the scenery is basically the same, like it's snowing, there's more ice, and every time it's just different. So the answer is no. I mean, even the expedition team make the point that they know that the next cruise will be completely different to this cruise. They'll call on different places, do different things. It's always very different. This is Cuverville, which apparently is the Antarctic Peninsula's largest gentoo colony. I do feel everywhere we go, it's the biggest this or whatever. I guess that's why they choose these places because obviously they are significant. Now this is a very stunning place. It's sort of like a iceberg graveyard where I
guess icebergs are stuck because of the currents. It's also a very bitter-sweet afternoon because we were told just before we headed out that we are cutting short our trip and the waves and the wind projected for Drake Passage are quite severe for the Thursday Friday, we're due to cross. Actually tonight, once everyone heads back, we are going to be heading off to cross the Drake Passage to try and avoid the worst of the storms. As you probably learned from everything that I've been talking about is you need to, if you come down to Antarctica, be ready for everything to change. In fact,
when I've been to Antarctica before, I think every single time we've left slightly early to try and avoid Drake Passage issues, which I guess a lot of people would be pleased about missing. We have actually visited the most incredible places, had the most incredible experience, so I don't feel that I'm missing out. But you just need to be ready for that experience. So after three nights and two days crossing Drake Passage, we're here in Puerto Williams where this trip ends. So the ship's there behind where we have a day in Puerto Williams where they've laid on various hikes and birdwatching and town tours and so on.
Drake Passage did prove to be a little bit on the bumpy side, particularly on the second day. So it's probably just as well we got here a little bit early. And then tomorrow we start getting the charter flights up to Santiago and the end of the trip. I've had an incredible time. It's been absolutely amazing, as you've seen, what we've seen now. If you join me over in some of the videos, I'll talk a little bit more about expedition cruising, some of the things I learned, and also how Silver Sea stacks up versus other expedition lines. See you over there.
2024-12-09 22:05
