Ice Floes in Cierva Cove, Antarctica
I woke up this morning and had no idea what time it was. For some reason, my cell phone, computer, and Garmin GPS watch all had different times. The cell phone uses the time of whatever signal it picks up, and all of the research bases use the time of their homeland. Since there was a Chinese signal at King George Island, my cell phone put me on China time. As for the Garmin, it was trying to keep be on the appropriate timezone, but since longitude lines get closer down here, I think it was having trouble determining exactly what timezone it was in. The laptop? Who knows!
Unable to sleep, I went up on the deck to whale watch. The first thing that I noticed was the sheer number of icebergs/ice floes. There were small ones the size of basketballs and there were ones that were the size of small buildings – and remember, you cannot see most of an iceberg as it is submerged underwater. I saw some penguins swimming and surfacing on the water, but no whales.
Albatross Expeditions staff administering COVID tests
Soon, it was COVID testing and breakfast time. As I finished my test and walked around the corner, I heard a commotion back at the testing station. Apparently, some person was upset at having to take a COVID test every day. The person swore at one of the sample collectors. Nadine, the director of testing, got on the intercom and scolded everybody (it was MEANT for this one person, but she had to deliver it in a general way). They are just doing their jobs, why do you have to vent on them? Most cruises (and almost everything to Antarctica) have been canceled; you should feel lucky to be here. Anyway, all of the tests were negative!
For our morning excursion, we were slated to go to Mikkelson Harbor on Trinity Island. However, due to the high winds that we were experiencing, the captain pulled the plug on this expedition. We were supposed to see Gentoo penguins and Weddell seals. I was disappointed, along with everybody else, because penguins were the main attraction. We set course for our second stop of the day, Cierva Cove. I settled into the library to hang out and read my new book “String Theory for Dummies“. I talked shop (and about the marathon of course) to just about everybody.
Soon, it was lunchtime. My cabin mate, Tom, was dining with Linda, who was in the cabin across from us. I wandered to an unoccupied table in front of a window. I ate by myself, reflecting on everything. I peered out and looked at an ice floe off in the distance that had a dark spot on it. I watched it like a hawk, wondering if that was a seal. After a while, I saw it move and it was indeed a seal! It was too far away to figure out what kind, but it was definitely a seal.
Iceberg in Cierva Cove, Antarctica
We arrived at Cierva Cove, but there was no planned landing. We were going to take a 90-minute zodiac cruise around the bay. For whatever reason, I was the last person to board a zodiac. Earlier in the day, we were given a fun presentation about superstitions while on a ship. Three of them were:
- Women on a ship are bad luck
- Red-headed people on a ship are bad luck
- People with tattoos bring good luck
On this zodiac were five women (one of whom had very red hair) and two men (plus a male driver and a male guide). I promptly pointed this out and one of the women, Liz, spoke up and said that tattoos were good luck and that she was covered in them. Hmmm, now sure how this will all shake out, but I was willing to wait and see.
We set out, and again, I noticed how much ice was floating in the water. Thousands upon thousands of ice floes. We made our way to the largest iceberg that had a circular cutout. I am not sure what geological processes were at work there, but it was beyond cool. The ice was blue and it was beautiful. I asked the zodiac driver if he could drive through it. David, our Scottish guide, scolded me and said that he did not need any encouragement and would probably do so if encouraged.
Base Primavera, Antarctica
After taking bunches of pictures of that iceberg, we made our way to the Argentine Primavera Base. Up to this point, we had not seen any penguins close up, but there were hundreds of them around the base. I spotted mostly gentoo penguins, but also saw a chinstrap or two. At one point, I got a video of some penguins jumping into the water, then 30 seconds later (I do not know if it was the same bunch), got a video of them popping out. It was pretty cool as they swam through the water and popped upright on their feet on land. When they landed, they waddled around.
A call came over the radio that our driver took interest in. He pulled back from Base Primavera and drove the zodiac with a purpose. About ten minutes later, we arrived at a spot where a leopard seal was splashing in the water. Quickly, we noticed that he had a penguin and was preparing it for dinner. The penguin was not quite dead but had very little energy left. The seal kept throwing the penguin in the air and letting it hit the water. He would also grab the penguin and smack it on the water with quite a bit of force. Over the next 10 minutes, he would repeat these actions, and he even chased us three times because he felt we were getting too close.
Leopard seal trying to chase our zodiac away
When you are out on a zodiac, you sit on the inflated edge and put your feet onto the floor of the boat. Each time the seal charged us, David made us get off the side and sit on the floor, while not dangling any hands or arms over the side. In his words, he did not want to give the leopard seal any reason to attack us. At some point, the seal grabbed the penguin in his mouth and chomped him. You could see the water turn red and run down the seal’s face. About a minute later, you could smell the blood in the air. Snow eagles started swirling around the area looking for scraps. I asked David if he has ever seen this happen in real life. His response was that in all his years of coming to Antarctica, he has seen this only one time before, and it was from quite a distance. This was the closest he had ever been to such an event, and we were pretty darn lucky.
When I got back to my cabin, I had asked everybody about their trip. Numerous zodiacs had not even seen a penguin, let alone a leopard seal taking down a penguin. The five women, one with red hair, and the woman with tattoos were definitely good luck today!