Date of Entry: February 20th 2016
Date of Writing: April 3rd 2016, Bla Hostel, el Calafate, Argentina
I wake up sad to know we’re leaving paradise bay today, really it feels a lot like leaving paradise, but as always the promise of the unknown to come keeps me smiling and excited, just like it keeps me travelling.
We crawl out of bed tired from two nights of partying with the Chilean military and navy but excited for what the future holds, heading towards Brown Base and Avalanche glacier. Pulling up the anchor we keep sailing south. Today we don’t have too far to go, just a couple of hours to our next anchorage. Still, the scenery is impressive, though by Antarctica standards not overwhelming.
Soon enough we’re pulling in around past ‘busted’ brown and a huge cruise ship to Skunthorpe bay where we drop anchor along side a pair of other yachts, running out shore lines quickly and making sure were secure, as the anchorage is less than ideal in terms of grip on the bottom, but we get it done and while Josh James Ulises and Mariana get ready for a paddle in the kayaks we hop in the zodiac to go check out the glowing blue, jagged and noisy avalanche glacier. Spoiler alert: it may just be my favourite glacier yet.
Darrel gets us up close to the thundering glacier, as we try to pick up pieces that might fall off from the rough hewn towers of bright blue ice surrounding us. The mountains loom behind the glacier under the grey skies which are ever so slowly beginning to clear. I can’t help but take too many pictures of this ridiculous glacier, though unfortunately there’s no major calvings while we linger nearby as the kayakers catch up to us.
Eventually we head away from Avalanche glacier and out of the bay towards Brown Station, which has an interesting backstory that we’ll get to later. As we go around we find a giant cruise ship anchored in the strangest of places, the front of the ship all but driven into the massive cliff face. Darrel tells us he knows the captain and that this is the only man in Antarctica crazy enough to do this with such a big ship. Honestly it’s hard not to laugh looking at this metal behemoth wedged into the hillside.
We spend a short time visiting a tiny breeding colony of some blue eyed shags (think cool looking cormorant) where the chicks are only just learning to fly and playfully swimming around our zodiac and the kayakers. One actually ends up biting at my gloved hand to try to get a taste for human flesh. Luckily the gloves are thick and my flesh remains un pierced from the impetuous youthful beak.
From the shags we move on and land at Brown base, and I suppose now is as good a time as any for the tale of busted brown (as it is affectionately and secretly called). This is the story as it was related to me, from a collection of different people and I can not say I have researched the details, so understand that I am only sharing what I have been told.
Brown Base was once a year round scientific base for Argentina in Antarctica. They had a full staff including a base doctor, but it was difficult to find people who wanted to spend the year there.
One doctor, let’s call him Bob, agrees to a year long term of service at the base, and serves it out faithfully. After a long and very cold year of hard medical work the boat to switch out the staff of the base arrives. Bob’s ecstatic and ready to get back to his family in Argentina, but there’s one problem. The government did not find another doctor and so Bob is being forced to stay another entire year in Antarctic.
Bob isn’t happy. But Bob is a team player. Eventually he agrees to stay on as base doctor, but he secures a promise that this will be his last year.
Now maybe you can guess what happens next. Bob is a perfect doctor for another year, and has never been so happy as when the ship to change staff arrives. He’s ready to go home. Maybe he has a family, maybe he has a dog, maybe he just wants to check his facebook notifications. But one problem… Yup you guessed it! They didn’t find another doctor and expect him to spend another year at the base.
Bob is at the breaking point, and they won’t let him on the only boat out. As he watches it head back out to sea and faces the prospect of another year in the frigid and isolated environments of Antartic, his last grasp on sanity shatters and he decides to take action, setting fire to the entire mother bleeping base. The boat leaving sees the fire and evidently comes back to evacuate people, Dr. Bob escapes his frozen hell, and brown base becomes affectionately known as Busted Brown.
Story over.
Now I’m not quite sure where Dr. Bob ended up, i’m guessing prison, since even now, a few handfuls of years later, the base is only open a few months of the year and the evidence of the fire is still very much visible. But even with all this, it hasn’t deterred the penguins, who watch us land with notable curiosity before going about their daily life.
We are warmly greeted by an Argentinean scientist who says she’ll take our names on stuff on the way down, directing us up a clearly marked path towards the top of an epic hill which we’ve seen some of the red penguins (Darrel’s name for the cruise ship tourists in their matching red or yellow coats) tobogganing down earlier. It’s a lung draining but short climb, and yields more than just a chance for a slide down the snow on our bottoms.
Once we crest the hill we continue up onto a rocky outcrop together. the kayakers landed with us but decided not to climb up the hill so it’s just me, Matt, Tash, and Enora up in the strong cold winds standing a few hundred feet above the all but beached National Geographic Explorer cruise ship. The view is awe inspiring, with various glaciers all around us, stunning ice bergs in the open water and the sun beginning to peek out from behind the clouds. We take turn posing for photos up in this incredible place.
Now I know the first thought in your mind, it’s Luke what are you doing wearing a T shirt in Antarctica? To be fair there is a reason for it, and it’s because this place was too special so I naturally decided this is a perfect place for the paint me jack photo which I haven’t pulled out since Deception Island. Tash graciously takes the photos.
As the others head down I feel compelled to linger, the wind cutting through my t-shirt but I don’t care, it’s spectacular up here, and as Tash and Enora slide down the well made snow slide ass groove with incredible speed, I’m left alone to contemplate the incredible vast and varied beauty of the ridiculous world.
As I stand there a lone figure against the wind I see our kayakers heading back towards the spirit of sydney, and while I’m not up in an aeroplane I might as well be as these look just like aerial shots.
Eventually though it’s time to head down, and while I’m not a big fan of snow slides I decide to go for it, tossing my camera and such into my waterproof bag in it’s case and then head down. There will hopefully be video coming, but let me assure you of this, it feels like you’re moving a hell of a lot faster.
My run ends 85 percent of the way down the hill as my foot sticks in some of the lose snow beside the track, painfully jerking me to a stop. I get up and walk the rest of the way as Tash and Enora laugh at me.
They decide to head back to the base but I’m looking at some secondary buildings of the base out at the point and the girls agree to cover for me while I go for a quick walk and they radio Darrel asking him to come pick us up. I’ve got some time and I’m thrilled for it, getting some beautiful views of a few more glaciers as well as a stunning little iceberg filled inlet backed by a perfect looking mountain. Oh and of course there’s lots of Gentoo’s!
Now here’s where I make perhaps not the wisest decision, though it was hard to tell from where I was standing. Down at the far edge of the point looking back towards the base, I decide to follow the shoreline rather than retrace my steps. It looks like an easy enough rock and iceberg beach to walk along, but around the point the beach gets narrower, and the wall of snow and ice behind the beach taller and more imposing. And it’s melting fast, which means there’s real danger of a huge section of it collapsing on me, which leads me to pick my path through calf deep water.
Another problem presents itself when I reach the back end of the main base and find my only way around and up is to scramble up some penguin poop covered rucks, duck under a barrier and hope no one sees me doing it. but I can hear Darrel arriving around the corner so there’s no time to go back, and I do everything I can to keep clean though by the time I’m getting back to the zodiac I have to pause to wash my awesome waterproof pants (Borrowed from Gabriel at freestyle travel’s personal wardrobe) in a tide pool before climbing on board the zodiac. Lesson being in Antarctica it might be best to stick to the marked paths, especially at bases.
Either way the zodiac ride back around to our anchorage alongside avalanche glacier is beautiful as the clouds are quickly continuing to give way yielding some beautiful blue skies to colour the glaciers an even brighter blue.
As we get back to the Spirit of Sydney in the late afternoon I grab my ereader and phone to sit out on deck and watch Avalanche glacier trying to ascertain how it earned it’s name. Everyone else is inside when I get a special show, up above the glacier a big ice cap crumbling and tumbling down through a narrow crenelation in the towering mountain. Its incredible and makes for a thunderous sound. I honestly just can’t believe how much it looks like a waterfall, something I’d accepted I’m unlikely to see in Antarctica. (The video is coming soon)
I strongly consider swimming but at the end decide against it, which I will admit I regret. The sun was shining and this would have been a beautiful place for it. Stupid Luke. Real stupid.
Eventually Enora comes and joins me looking straight up like a metapod (pokemon enthusiasts know what I mean) and sitting outside with me. Josh and Tash eventually appear and find out just how much Enora’s sleeping bag limits her field of view. Honestly it’s quite entertaining.
From here Tash, the Mexicans and I all lobby to go do something else and Josh happily volunteers to pilot another zodiac outing while the others rest up, not interested in heading out again. I can’t say I understand the decision, but I’m happy as it means I don’t have competition for the extra outings we decide to do throughout the trip.
As we take the zodiac out we see two people on another yacht all done up in their survival suits (specifically designed to keep you from being cold) going for a swim. To me this seems both pointless and a massive cop out but hey to each they’re own.
At any rate, we quickly leave them behind and after some discussion head out across the huge bay away from Avalanche glacier and towards some more distant ones. The sky is now more blue than not and it’s actually quite warm if you remove the wind from the equation. As we motor past endless snow capped rocky mountains and incredible sprawling blue glaciers all around us we snap lots of pictures and are infinitely glad we’ve left the boat.
As we keep going and the sun begins it’s slow crawl out of the southern skies sinking below some of the remaining clouds and hitting the water in the most entrancing ways. We putter past melting icebergs killing the motor to listen to the sound of dripping water from the ancient ice. It’s a strange thing watching glacial ice melt, ice that has existed for hundreds of thousands of years in some case, changing and mutating and joining an ocean. The more I think about it the more it makes me feel infinitesimally small.
We’re running low on gas but the glaciers all around us draw us on closer and closer. After a while we get a radio call asking us to pick up ice. tonight there’ll be a gin and tonic bar on board and we’re not peasants, so of course we’ll be taking our drinks with glacial ice. since Josh is driving and I’m the resident crazy Canadian it falls on me to reach into the ocean and pick out a small boulder sized iceberg. Now here’s the thing about ice, it’s slippery, heavy, and just hard to grip in general. I end up soaking both my arms up to the elbow dragging the ice out, but it’s all worth it. Except I don’t drink… but the ice tastes just as good in a glass of coke, or on it’s own for that matter.
Eventually the gas crisis grows too serious and we head back to the boat as the sun continues to sink in the sky. It’s been another truly incredible day in Antarctica and tomorrow we’re on the move, heading for our southernmost anchorage on the trip at Vernadsky station, a year round Ukrainian scientific base which promises tons more adventure, and some crazy parties. (as only the Ukrainians know how).
