Neko Harbor

December 18, 2011

PARADISE BAY, ANTARCTICA -- Both landings today were on the continent itself! As such, all doubt possible is gone, although we have been on the continental shelf for every landing we have done anyway.

We had another good day of weather – no winds and no precipitation. At our first landing, at Neko Harbor, we saw Gentoo penguins as we climbed halfway up a mountain, and they demonstrated as previously stated how they can scale an icy mountain at a far faster rate than we humans can. That said, we had nearly three hours for this landing – most are around 1 hour, maybe a little more, but this was about double our next-longest landing thus far, and it was nice to have a really leisurely pace.

Later on, we had a short zodiac cruise where we saw some crazy ice reflections in Neko Harbor. The winds slowed to still, and most of the zodiacs went in a different direction, so everything was virtually flat. The pictures of the icebergs and the snow-capped mountains reflecting off the still water turned out great. An interesting observation by one of our zodiac drivers with regards to why humans are so infatuated with penguins suggested that it is because of all the other animals out there, they are the only ones that stand upright and walk on two legs, as we do. As someone who is infatuated with penguins, I had never thought of that, but it certainly makes a lot of sense.

Early this afternoon after lunch we saw an enormous tabular iceberg at Andvord Bay – it was far taller and far wider than our ship, which is pretty much the definition for an enormous as opposed to a large iceberg. I decided to create a little project, as we had some warning before reaching it. I ended up taking a 145-picture time-lapse of our ship turning around the iceberg. I took the shots in five-second intervals over nearly 10 minutes in total, on a gorillapod attached to the ship railing, and then timed out the shots and turned into a time-lapse video. The video turned out pretty good and they later showed it to everyone at our daily recap/briefing.

This afternoon we saw an Argentinean base, Almirante Brown Station at Paradise Bay. Interestingly nobody was there – the station is kept mainly to keep up the Argentinean sovereignty claim to this part of Antarctica. Apparently they come once in awhile for a few days or weeks at a time, and it is totally hit or miss. That said, it was a very nice and picturesque area. We climbed to the top of a mountain on the base, and at the top saw an amazing 360-degree view of the Paradise Bay channel. The hike was very steep, so on the way down after slipping on the ice a few times, we “bum-slid” our way halfway down the mountain until the path steadied out a bit, then hiked our way back to shore. From the station, we did a zodiac cruise over Paradise Bay, where we saw a Weddell Seal and a Crabeater Seal. Most spectacularly, we saw ice calving at Paradise Bay, with a thunderous roar. The first time I heard it, I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, and then saw the last little bits of ice chunks falling into the water, where a massive ripple wave and effect was already underway. Sure enough, we saw this happen a couple more times at Paradise Bay – for whatever reason, either the weather was right, we had good timing, or some combination of the two!

Back on the ship, we had a Filipino dinner tonight in honor of our mainly Filipino staff, also the “crew band” played in the Polar Bear Bar. The crew band ended up being pretty darn good – I was left impressed. The singer, Garnett, is also one of our two bartenders, so we know him better than almost anybody else, and his mannerisms singing were priceless. Later on, after the band finished and most of the people left (it was packed while they were playing), we started to break out dancing, which was a ton of fun. At one point Garnett got out from behind the bar and started doing the Soulja Boy dance with us – quite a sight I am sure. Thanks to all dancers and dance partners, but especially to Mary Grace, who absolutely kicked my ass out there. It is always fun dancing with a better partner than you are – she taught me a few moves!

Quote of the day comes from Amundsen, who if you have been following along or at the very least know your history, was the first man to make it to the South Pole: “An adventure is an expedition not planned correctly.”