Date of Entry: February 12th, 2016
Date of Writing: March 18th 2016, Hostel Yagan House, Puerto Natales, Chile.
We wake up after our amazing first landing and crazy weather from the day before eager to get started, the sky outside is a pure and beautiful blue and it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day. Though I try to keep yesterday’s lesson in mind; weather can change quickly here. In my eyes at least thats all the more reason to hurry.
So before breakfast is even a concern we’re up on deck and I’m learning how to pull up the anchor as we spin around and head out of telephone bay, making the short journey across the caldera towards Whaler’s bay, our new anchorage.
As we sail Tash makes a delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon and hot chocolate so by the time we drop anchor in whaler’s bay we’re fed and ready for today’s adventure. Walking up past Neptune’s window’ to the other side of the island at Baily’s Head, the largest chinstrap Penguin rookery in Antarctica. Soon enough we’re piling into the zodiac in two different groups, Josh shuttling us to shore.
Neptune’s window lurks to our right, a caved in opening in the cliff face letting us see beyond the walls of the caldera, and all around us are the rusted remains of a huge whaling station that gives this bay it’s name. The station has been abandoned since the 1960’s but once upon a time it was a major production centre for sperm whale oil, which for a long time was the sole fluid used to lubricate jet engines. This helps to explain if not justify the way we hunted many species of whales close to the point of extinction.
The huge storage vats are empty hollow shells now but the ruins are fascinating to explore as we wait for the second group of zodiacer’s to get to shore. We even find some clever fur seals taking shelter from the wind in the hollowed out structures. As we peer into the darkness they growl to protect their sanctuary’s.
I eventually wander up the beach, tired of waiting for the others and having spotted a small group of Gentoo penguins up in the snowy bottom sections of the mountains which make up the volcanic island all around us. They don’t seem to mind as I approach slowly and snap some pictures of them soaking up the rays on this sunny Friday morning.
As the other group arrives on the beach we all hurry back and drag the zodiac way up onto the black sand out of reach of the tide and any unexpected waves. The penguin’s watch our labour with curious faces and then we turn away from them and toward’s neptune’s window, watching a small group of Spanish scientists heading up through the pass we are planning to crest. Today is supposed to be a fairly relaxing day, the rookery just a short walk away from our anchorage according to Darrel. It’s also Ulises’ birthday and he’s been blessed with amazing weather and what will prove to be one of our best days in Antarctica.
The Spanish scientists mark our path for the first little while eventually heading up past the beach through a beautiful narrow valley between two mountains, the dark earth dusted with snow, and the sun glistening in the sky above of us. It’s a truly beautiful day, and I find myself utterly in awe of the landscapes here.
As I turn around near the top to wait a few seconds for the others and to photograph their ascent, Mathieu proves his ridiculous and awesome nature with some interesting facial expressions and his beautiful multicoloured hat.
All together again I turn and head up the last short distance of this pass, stumbling out to a jaw dropping view of the other side of the island, the pure blue of the sea only broken by the stunning white ice bergs lurking out in the distance. Birds soar below us, the sun shines above, and the waves break on the rocky shores hundreds of meters down. In so many ways with the cool wind blowing in my face, I find myself losing control. This continent is impossible to believe.
We pause here, all winded from the climb, but more so in awe of the incredible view, even looking back is impressive giving us a view of Whaler’s bay and our anchored home. We end up taking lots of silly photos and here is the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The first “paint me jack” photos of my trip to Antarctica. Again I’m impressed with Matt as he suggests unbuttoning my pants just a little for a subtle suggestion of more to come. It may be a sunny day, but the winds up here are still frozen, and soon enough I’m getting a bit cold.
Eventually we decide it’s time to head higher up through the second pass as I’m trying to work out just where the rookery might be. Darrel had initially described the walk as just up and over, only a quick jaunt, but apparently I missed something when he was looking at the charts and showing Josh where we need to go later on, because we’re still quite a ways from the rookery. Oh well, the weather’s perfect, the scenery’s spectacular and as we climb up higher I can’t keep a smile from my face. At this point despite an improved but still aching leg I’m thinking the longer the walk the better.
We take another break halfway up the second pass starting to guess at the location of the rookery. We suspect it’s at the distant rocky point some considerable distance along the rugged and mountainous coastline of deception island. Eventually we continue, climbing up the last and steepest part, zigzagging along the loose black dirt of the island and making towards the rocky outcrop above us which is the highest point visible from this vantage on the island.
Up at the top of the pass the view is unspeakably beautiful, looking back the way we’ve come and onwards to where were headed. We even find a few mounds of strange resilient grass, which must be incredibly strong to be growing here. By this point I’m in a near constant state of blissful wonder, unable to believe where I am and this entire day. And here’s the kicker, we haven’t seen a single chinstrap penguin yet. So yes, this is going to be a very long entry, but I promise the places we get to… it’s worth reading on.
After some GPS and radio consultation Josh sets our course tracing the top of these massive hills heading in as straight a line as we can towards the big rocky point in the photo above that we believe to be Baily head.
We eventually come to a bit of a crossroads when we arrive at a more snow covered gentle slope that looks almost like a glacier, though it’s not. Here we have have to decide weather to go up and around, or straight across.
The group decides to split here, each half with a radio. Matt, Tash, James and I decide to cut across and save our legs the climb, feeling confident enough in the snow to edge our way across. It ends up being pretty simple, the hardest part is actually getting through a small muddy section before reaching the snow covered earth.
We feel like we’re getting close now, and while we do get a call on the radio to wait, we manage to negotiate meeting up at the top of the much smaller pass ahead. In the distance we can see shapes on the hillside which look suspiciously like penguins, and as we continue along we find a broken empty egg and feel almost sure that after more than 3 hours we’ve finally reached the beginning of the penguin rookery.
Tash, James, Matt and I hurry up towards the distant shapes and just as we reach the top of the pass we get to our first group of chinstrap penguins.
Here’s a lesson for you, Penguin rookery’s smell terrible. Like really terrible. Even with a strong wind to clear the air. The penguins eat nothing but fish and there’s thousands of them just shitting on the rocks, it’s a recipe for a special scent. Still we decide to wait here for the others rather than retreating from the smell, totally captured by these adorable little smelly birds.
The group closest to us is mostly made up of penguin chicks who for the most part still wear their downy coats, but there are a few adults around, and promptly on our arrival one of them picks up a rock and walks directly to Tash. I’m not sure if he was proposing or not, but it was a pretty special welcome to the rookery as we wait for the others.
As the others arrive, disaster strikes and my overuse of my camera comes back to bite me, my 64 GB SD card apparently full. I’m panicking but digging through my camera bag I find another card I don’t remember stashing there and breath a sigh of relief. You’ll understand the sigh when you see some of the places we get to visit in the coming hours. While being there is the obvious highlight, I’m glad to be able to capture some of the moments both for you readers, and for myself.
Just being up in the pass waiting for the group to reunite is incredible, standing in silence watching the penguins go about their daily lives. The babies are adorable and we’re privileged enough to watch some parents feed their children.
It’s a fascinating system and goes far beyond just regurgitation. The chicks find their parents as they return to the mountain after lots of time spent fishing. They identify their own parents using each others distinct calls but finding mum or dad isn’t enough to get a baby fed. The parent will identify their chick then take off running away from it, the chick’s give chase until the grown ups are content and then they’ll get some fresh regurgitated fish, a few mouthfuls usually, and it’s often followed by more running.
The parents do this to train their babies to get strong enough to survive in the harsh ecosystems of Antarctica. Once these babies shed their downy coats they’ll have to contend with leopard seals, long distance swimming, and lots of other issues. Thinking about it, the life of a penguin might not actually be the life for me, though they certainly do look smugly content after pooping on the rocks in front of everyone.
The others arrive and start taking lots of photos of the one beautiful group of birds. There are countless penguins leading down the various hillsides, thousands upon thousands of them, and I use the time to climb a little higher heading towards the sea and paying a quick visit to a few other groups of chinstraps.
I’m called back to the group by Josh because for some reason we’ve decided to eat lunch away from the penguins, heading a short way back down the pass to escape the wind and pungent penguin smell. I can understand the logic behind it, even if I don’t completely agree with it.
We enjoy a quick lunch of hot chocolate, ham and cheese sandwiches, crackers, granola bars and chocolate before heading back up into the madness of the penguins to fully explore the scene.
We fan out over the hills, knowing just how many penguins there are, and that we don’t have a hope of visiting them all. I head up to a windy point again before joining the others in a slow and meandering descent. The penguins all around us are hard to fathom, and watching them interact with each other you realize just how social (and sometimes anti social) these creatures can be. Watching the chicks and parents find each other is a pretty impressive spectacle, since they all look alike to me. It’s also hard to fathom how they’ve decided to come this far up into the hills. I mean we’re still about an hour’s walk from the Ocean, and well, believe it or not I have longer legs than a penguin.
Some of my favourite’s of the chinstraps we’re the molting ones, as adults change their feathers after each breeding season to avoid the dreaded feather wear out. Their backs looking like they’ve been drenched in snow flakes. They are truly special and as we keep struggling to find a path down that doesn’t disturb too many penguins I just look around in all directions gaping, watching for special moments amongst the penguins.
Sadly as we walk we start to encounter a decent number of dead penguins, some reduced to bones, some flesh still fresh. But this world is a beautiful harsh place and one death provides for another species as we watch two hungry skuas fight over the remains of a baby penguin.
Walking down through the narrow valleys between hills I really can almost never decide where to look. Trumpeting chinstraps call out for each other all around us and it seems like with every blink I’m missing something special. Sadly I always lose staring contests and blinking is inevitable, so missing some moments is just a fact of life.
At some point during our descent James emerges in his penguin costume trying to infiltrate this new species but they seem to know somethings up. I’m too focused on the actual penguins to capture his capering, but it was quite entertaining.
As we continue the long walk through thousands of penguins down towards the sea the huge cliff face in front of us becomes even more impressive, the green lichen growing all over it seeming out of place in Antarctica but providing an ideal background for still more penguin photos. The longer we spend here the more we learn that if we just stand still, penguins will eventually approach, which is awesome.
As we continue down the hill we have a dilemma. This walk has taken us a lot longer than we expected and it’s already mid afternoon. We don’t know how much further away the beach and end of our trail actually is and Josh checks in with everyone that we still want to keep going, and not just wander around this area a bit before heading back. I thank my lucky stars when everyone votes to carry on. I don’t know what the beach will hold but I want to see every inch I can of this ludicrous place.
So we keep going and eventually reach the deeper valley at the bottom of all the mountains and hills we’ve just come out of. A small stream of snow run off runs through this valley and here we see the two separate natures of the chinstrap penguin. One looks so entirely content chilling in the water not moving at all while the other duo, a parent and chick, scramble frantically, their little legs carrying them at impossible speeds as the chick chases mum or dad, eventually leaving the grown up penguin wiped out on the penguin poop covered ground.
We follow the stream down and around some small hills in the shadows of that huge green cliff seen above. We round a corner and suddenly we know we’ve found it, the main penguin highway to and from the ocean. A wide open area with another stream is swarmed with two way traffic of these tiny white and black birds. Beyond them though skuas, petrols, and albotross’ soar in the sky, fur seals lounge on the dark sand, some doing battle with each other.
It’s impossible to describe the moment of coming out to this, thousands of penguins hurrying towards the sea and even more hurrying the opposite way up towards their chicks with bellies full of fish. Of course this place demands a paint me jack photo, even if lying down in the penguin poop isn’t exactly a thrilling experience.
As we keep walking past the countless dedicated parents we see a sad yet inspirational sight, a penguin badged in blood, hurrying away from the sea and up to it’s chicks. It walks as smoothly as penguins ever do, but from the red smears across his normally snow white chest, we know this penguin has had an adventure, most likely tangling with and narrowly escaping a leopard seal in the cold ice dotted waters here. The life of a penguin is full of struggles, but we’re all happy to see this little guy still managing after what must have been a terrifying experience.
We continue out towards the beach, distant snow capped mountains and countless floating icebergs drawing us on through the heavy traffic of webbed feat and dangerously aggressive fur seals. The whole place is throbbing with life and honestly as we edge our way out closer to the beach through a dangerous maze of resting fur seals, I’m forced to admit, this may well be the most impressive and downright beautiful place my eyes have ever fallen upon. It’s certainly on a short list.
Picking our path is difficult. We don’t want to disturb the penguins, we don’t want any one suffering the highly toxic bite of a fur seal, and so we stay close to the cliffs on our right, watching carefully for seals concealed in the rocks, and eventually coming to a little inlet of the ocean.
Luckily it’s only shin deep and our muck boots make quick work of it leaving us out on the actual beach for the first time, close to it’s end at the impressive brown cliffs.
On the beach things begin to unravel, and by that I only mean my delicate sanity is pushed to it’s boundaries looking around and trying to take in the whole scene. Penguins are everywhere, walking, entering the water, exiting it in impressive leaps, and still leaping out in the surf alongside icebergs and backed by the stunning silhouettes of endless snowy mountains. Seals move amongst the penguins, and in the skies above bigger birds soar, skua’s looking for weak or dead penguins to feast on. Take away all the wildlife and you’re still on an absolutely stunning beach, but add in the wild life and like I said, it’s more beautiful and special than I could have dared imagine and only strengthens my profound love of this world. Everyone is in Awe. It’s moments and places like these that keep me on the road.
We spend along time just wandering around this little section of beach watching pure and untouched nature unfold in front of us. A very small percentage of cruise ships make it here, because the surf is rough making the landing tough and the walk is just too far if coming from the sheltered waters of whalers bay. Today there’s not a soul outside our crew in sight and we all feel privileged to be in this spectacular place in the world. It’s a beautiful place, and if you don’t believe me how special these little birds are, let’s go to the videos. Quite a few of them.
I really can’t express how amazing this day has been up to this point and I’m actively campaigning for more time on the beach. Sadly it’s too late in the day to do what I want and walk along the beach a ways. (something which can be dangerous with bad weather) Still we hang out long enough to see lots more scenes of nature, and I feel like I’m smack dab in the middle of planet earth, just waiting for David Attenborough’s perfect voice to start narrating. “The albatross’ is never one to turn down a free meal, and while baby penguin might not be the most appetizing dish, they are not picky eaters.”
Eventually though it’s time to head back, leaving this tiny piece of paradise behind with great regret. Still it’s a long walk back to the boat and we’re know well into the later hours of the afternoon. Besides, the news isn’t all bad, walking back means walking up past the 100,000 penguins one more time. Which means lots more awe and lots more photos. As I walk I can’t help but feel happy for Ulises. it’s his birthday today, and this day’s adventure likely even tops Arriving in Antarctica on Enora’s birthday.
We move much faster on the way back, out of necessity more than anything, and as we emerge out past the main sections of the penguin colony and smell fresh air again, we realize how strong the smell of the poop of 100,000 penguins actually is. As we hike up the snowy mountain passes all over again I find myself looking back the way we’ve come towards Baily head and what is undoubtedly on a short list for my favourite individual places in the world.
We keep walking up along the crest of the hills taking a slightly different path than how we came back but featuring mostly the same scenery, though since the light has all changed it looks quite different and I’m still just utterly blown away by the beauty of this place. It took us about 4.5 hours to get to the beach at Baily Head but only 2.5 to make it back to the beach at whaler’s bay, under neptune’s window.
Down on the beach of Whalers bay we get a few surprises. After not seeing a single chinstrap inside the caldera in two days we’re greeted by a single one standing on the beach watching us. Perhaps a safety scout sent to make sure we actually left the rookery, and are not planning to kidnap some penguin chicks under the cover of night. If only such things were allowed.
We also find a Brazilian tv crew filming on the beach, who have come to antarctica on another yacht about our size in order to make a show doing extreme sports in Antarctica, because according to them, every other show about Antarctica is boring and Sciency. I’m not sure I agree with that but it’s cool to meet them and chat with them on the beach for a while.
My legs are pretty sore after two days of fairly intense hiking that wasn’t really planned, still, despite everyone being tired and hungry we decide we can’t leave without checking out the ancient remains of the whaling base more closely, wandering through the rusted metal buildings and finding a small cemetery in behind the base.
It’s oddly beautiful despite me not being the biggest fan of the whaling industry, which even now some 40 years on, has a visible effect on the wildlife populations here. Gentoos and a few fur seals accent the abandoned base just in case we could forget that we’re in Antarctica.
As we’re all stumbling back towards the zodiac which is still safely on the beach we notice a few of the brazilians set up with cameras facing one of the smaller mountains, then make out a kayaker up at the top of the hill, looking like he’s getting ready to go. We stop and watch and I’m reminded of just how insane humanity can be as he plummets down the hill in a boat of all things.
We head back to the Spirit of Sydney with the sun sinking lower in the sky, though there’s still a few hours of sunlight left. To celebrate Ulises’ birthday we have a huge feast of faux Mexican food in the form of hard tacos filled with beef, cheese, and veggies. It’s delicious and the mood on board is jubilant, all of us only wondering what else Antarctica might have in store for us. Again I’m going to sleep with vignettes of the day playing over my closed eyelids.
Sadly the next day we get a lot of wind and snow and spend the day inside the boat, relaxing, stretching out tired muscles and hoping the weather will be good enough the next morning for us to move on to our next anchorage at Enterprise Island. It’s a full day of sailing away, but I know that sailing through Antarctic waters is rarely boring and often full of amazing wildlife and scenery so I can’t wait. Stay Tuned.
