Wouldn’t it be absolutely amazing to be able to set foot on the seventh continent; Antarctica?! To me this always seemed like the ultimate journey, but I also knew that this is a very expensive journey. One that probably never would happen, just a faraway dream.
I have been back home for a month now, after a journey of a lifetime!
Still processing everything I experienced and have seen during six weeks of working as an Ocean Conservationist on an expedition cruise to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula.
First let’s go back to the end of March 2022. I was working for ORCA as an Ocean Conservationist onboard of the DFDS ferry King Seaways between North Shields and IJmuiden. I remember that I was really tired and wanted to have an afternoon nap, but I was expecting a phone call from ORCA HQ. When it came, I never expected the call to start with do you want to go to Antarctica in November and December? My answer was an immediate YES! After this call, I was amazed, surprised and flabbergasted! I just started working with ORCA and they already gave me this opportunity, I must be doing something right.
I honestly never fully believed that I was going to Antarctica until I really started travelling. Before this trip I had never left Europe before. Now I was on my way to Santiago in Chile on a 16 hour flight with a stop in Buenos Aires. In the airport hotel in Santiago I got to meet some of my new colleagues. We stayed at the airport hotel for the night and had our COVID test, as we had to test negative in order to board the ship. Luckily we were all negative! The next morning around 05:00, we got picked up from the airport hotel and walked to the domestic airport of Santiago (literally a 100m walk). At around 08:00 we flew away from Santiago on a very stunning flight across the Andes and Patagonia to Punta Arenas. As it was a charter flight, the pilot showed us some beautiful sights of the mountains like the peaks of Torres del Paine.
Punta Arenas is a small city in the south of Chile and the port where we would board Hurtigruten MS Fram. Fram would be our home away from home for the next six weeks. During these six weeks we did 2 three week cruises to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula then back across the drake passage to Chile. And these six weeks were without a doubt one of the best six weeks of my life!
What was my job exactly? I was part of the Expedition team onboard as a marine biologist specialised in all things whales and dolphins. During the cruise I gave lectures, workshops and do wildlife watches from the bow of the ship. As I was part of the expedition team, I was also part of the landing operations. During the cruise we had quite a few landings. Basically if it wasn't a sea day we would have landings or zodiac cruising along the shore line. The expedition team is the first to go on land, to scout / flag walking routes, to observe the wildlife to see if we weren't disturbing them too much, and set up a perimeter around wildlife to keep the animals save and hopefully as undisturbed as possible. When the passengers are on land we keep an eye out to them to see if they are okay, answer any questions they might have and also if they keep their distance from the animals. Besides that we still keep an eye out to the animals for any change in behaviour and react accordingly, like changing the perimeter and keep more distance. With the bird flu raging through the Northern Hemisphere, as a precaution, we kept at least 5m distance of all the birds. Besides this we as a team were also responsible for biosecurity, especially the rules around South Georgia are extremely strict. All boots need to be clean of any biological materials, this includes the smallest of seeds and stones. Besides the boots all outer layers needs to be clean too, cleaning velcro is quite difficult.
The Falkland Islands
After leaving Punta Arenas, Fram would set sail to the Falkland Islands, which we would explore for three days. With four landings and a day in the capital city of Stanley. The Falklands are beautiful in a serene kind of way, I got to visit a couple of different islands and the scenery is green, rolling hills, high rocky cliffs, some sheep and lots of birds. It's in the Falklands where I encountered my first penguins: Rock Hopper, Macaroni, Magellenic, Gentoo and King Penguins. It was absolutely brilliant to see penguins in the wild and their natural habitat! I loved to observe them for hours on end, I could spent an entire day looking at all the shenanigans behaviours going on.
The Falklands are also the nesting home of almost 70% of the worlds population of black-browed albatross. Albatross are the largest sea birds in the world. The Black-browed are relatively medium in size but still very large.
Stanley is a very small calm city, surrounded by nature, and it felt very British, with lovely seaside tearooms. The Falklands waters are the home of many endemic species of dolphins; like the Commersons, Dusky and peales dolphins. I am still so glad and grateful I got to see all of them on numerous occasions. They sure do love bow-riding Fram. During our time in the Falklands we were constantly lucky with the weather, lots of sunshine, sometimes very windy, but no rain.
South Georgia.
It takes two full days at sea to reach South Georgian waters and the Shag rocks. During these sea days, whales were seen and the Antarctic convergence was crossed. The Antarctic convergence is a sea region which encircles Antarctica, the convergence varies seasonally in latitude. In this sea region the cold northward flowing Antarctic waters meet the warmer waters of the Sub-Antarctic. What is interesting about this zone is that dolphins do not cross this line, whereas whales easily cross it to go to the productive waters of Antarctica. You do actually feel a change in the air, when you cross the convergence the wind becomes colder.
The first sign of South Georgian land are the shag rocks. These rocks are impressive peaks in the middle of the ocean filled with, you guessed it, shags, Imperial shags to be precise. Because these peaks rise up so suddenly, in a sea which otherwise is close to 3000m of depth, it creates up-welling full of nutrients. This is therefore an area with the potential of whales. This is the place where I came across my very first Southern Right whales. From the shag rocks it is still half a day at sea to reach the actual island of South Georgia.
And South Georgia did not disappoint, it is basically uninhabited, besides some (seasonal/research) positions around the old whaling station of Grytviken and Edward point. The landscape can only be described as dramatically gorgeous! High mountains with glaciers, rocky coastline with rocky beaches. What is so amazing is that every since we, humans, abandoned the whaling stations, wildlife have taken over completely. You really get a felling of how the world could look like if we suddenly disappear from the planet. The coastline is home to numerous species of birds, however it is mostly home to seals and (king) penguins!
The seals where almost completely wiped out during the sealing, now between 4-6 million Antarctic fur seals come to South Georgia to breed on the beaches. This is almost 97% of the world population. Besides the fur seals, the Southern elephant seal also calls South Georgia it's home. The elephant seal, with 4m in length and 4tonnes in weight is the largest seal in the world. It were these seals that made landings on South Georgia very difficult at times and sometimes even too dangerous. Fur seals can be very aggressive/protective of their harems and they will charge at humans. However, if you could get past these amazing creatures, you would arrive in plains or mountainous areas created by glaciers and are now home to penguins.
Especially the plains, king penguins galore! Honestly as far as the eye can see, penguins everywhere! What is amazing about the kings is that they are very curious and will come towards you. Which at times was also annoying as we have to keep 5m distance from them. At some point these kings were herding us humans, which is of course also very funny.
The waters around South Georgia were absolutely amazing for whales, many large whales, like humpbacks and fin whales were seen including mother calf pares. This made my whale loving heart beyond happy! ( I will write an entire blogpost about this)
Antarctic peninsula
After 4/5 days of South Georgia it was time to move on towards the 7th continent; Antarctica! Again two full days at sea are needed to reach the Antarctic Islands of South Shetland. During these sea days you start to see more and more icebergs. On the second cruise we even passed one of the largest icebergs in the world A76A, it took around 8 hours to pass the iceberg.
Seeing the world of ice and mountains, again un-describable. Utterly amazing, stunning and magical. And it is largely completely untouched by humans, except for some research stations. And this untouched wilderness is brilliant to experience, an example is the complete silence. It can be so quiet that you are almost afraid to speak or even move. I did get to walk one the 7th continent, whilst being surrounded by penguins! Of the Antarctic penguins the Gentoo is definitely my favourite, they are so funny and clumsy. Antarctica is home to the following penguins: Gentoo, Chinstrap, Adelie and Emperor. The only penguin species I haven't seen is the emperor penguin, which was to be expected as they live further south. However, these animals are noticing the effects of climate change, Antarctica is supposed to be a frozen dessert with hardly any precipitation, but in the recent years it started snowing more and more. Whilst I was in Antarctica I experienced many snow showers. I also got lucky and privileged to see penguin chicks, I initially thought that this was a sight for later in the season, I was proven wrong by fluffy Gentoo chicks.
Many seals also thrive in this frozen world, like the Weddell seal, Crabeater and Leopard seal. Even though I was here quite early in the season many whales had already found their way down south! Mostly humpback whales and fin whales were seen. Elephant Island, one of the South Shetland islands, is amazing for fin whales! Whale blows were seen everywhere! Seeing whale blows on the horizon often ment that I would drop everything I was doing inside and rush outside to start a survey and hope to see some more.
Another job I had during the cruise was participating in a long distance sampling research, which was conducted from the bridge around South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula to research the presence and abundance of whales along these coastal waters. This will hopefully be a long term research project by ORCA in cooperation with the British Antarctic Survey and the South Georgian government. I loved that I could be a part of this research and help protect the whales in Antarctic waters.
To get back to Chile, trees and civilisation we had to cross the Drake passage, the roughest patch of sea in the world. Either you experience Drake lake or Drake shake, I got to experience both versions of the Drake passage and definitely prefer the Drake lake option. I don't take 6/7m high waves very well. When you cross the Antarctic convergence once more the wind feels warm again. And you start seeing dolphins again. Who start bow-riding the ship once more. To get to Punta Arenas we went through the Beagle channel and had our customs check in the southern most town in the world of Puerto Williams. In the Beagle channel we again got faced with the effect of climate change, this time it was the melting of the glaciers, where some seemed to cry in massive waterfalls. It was a beautiful, yet a sad sight.
All in all, this was a trip of a lifetime and I feel so privileged and grateful to have experienced this stunning part of our planet. Yes, I haven been really cold, seasick and tired, but it was all worth it. I would do this all over again in a heartbeat! I have seen so many new species of wild animals; 7 penguins, 8 cetaceans, 5 pinnipeds and many many sea and coastal birds. I met amazing people on the ship, and going to Antarctica for the first time with people does create a special bond. This trip really opened my eyes on the effect that climate change actually has on our beautiful planet. However, it also showed that if we humans work together we can achieve things for the better. The whales and seals are definitely a great example where we stopped the whaling and sealing and now the numbers of these animals are increasing again, after facing near extinction. In other words there is still hope but we do need to act now! This blog was basically a brief summary of my adventures in the south. I will write more blog posts on this adventure diving more in-depth of the places I got to visit, the threats they face and how I experienced this adventure. Stay tuned and in the meantime enjoy some of my photos!
Comments