Date of Entry: February 29th 2016
Date of Writing: April 25th 2016, Art Factory Hostel Palermo, Buenos Aires
I wake up sad. Not sad because I’m sick,but sad because I know this is our last day. At least Antarctica has gifted us a beautiful one, pure blue skies and barely a breath of wind. One last hoorah. I suppose.
The hoorah is a little delayed as Darrel sleeps late and rises upset that we’ve not left without him though we hd very little idea where to go. The kayakers head out for a final paddle while we prepare for a zodiac ride to explore some new narrow channels through the Melchior islands which border the Drake Passage.
We eventually do get moving and head back into some narrow channels some of which have only just opened up and become actual channel’s and not dead ends. Either way with the blue sky, no wind and giant cliffs of ice mirrored in the pure blue waters. One thing is for sure: it’s beautiful.
Once we tire of sitting in the middle of the channel stunned by the utter perfection of the reflections we backtrack a bit and head to a point covered in resting seals. As we draw closer we are stunned to see four species together, fur seals, crab eater’s a big fat Wedell and, perched above them all, another leopard seal. This many species together is rare, especially with the leopard seal because while they never hunt on land they are still vicious predators.
We move on though, wanting to get back out into more open water and enjoying how much clearer the water is here, the algae bloom that turns Antarctic waters mostly inky black early in the summer not so strong here.
We drift pass inpressive icebergs admiring their grooves and strange shapes as well as what they do to the colour of the water even as we drift by penguins and gulls on the coastal rocks all around us. It’s beautifully serene and the sun is almost warm. Goodness but I’m going to miss this place.
We head briefly out into the rougher waters at the edge of the drake passage, which I’m dreading more than usual since I’m already feeling very much under the weather, and just the rough bouncing up and down in the zodiac is enough to remind us what’s waiting for us these next 4 days.
As we round the corner and reenter sheltered waters heading back to the spirit of Sydney Darrel suddenly kills the engine and turns the boat looking out to the distance quite sharply. He thinks he’s seen a whale. Sure enough a few moments later there’s another burst of spray and flash of something dark on the water in the distance and soon enough we’re speeding over towards them. It takes a few moments to locate them again but soon enough we’re trailing two humpbacks in the zodiac and it’s amazing how close we can get, and how being on the same level as the whales adds so much to the experience.
The two whales swim alongside us, not seeming to mind generally frolicking in the water before starting to move a little quicker, now swimming with a purpose and taking some shallow dives as well, flashing their massive tails.
We try to get in radio contact with the kayakers, who we’ll find out later had there own epic whale encounters in the kayaks but find they are too distant so instead we keep following the whales who are now heading out into the more open waters of the drake and diving much more frequently.
As we get closer to the two of them who seem to swim in sequence, clearing their blow wholes and diving in patters I begin to appreciate just how big these majestic creatures are. I mean it is possible to see Great Blue whales in Antarctica but we haven’t been so lucky, still the humpbacks are massive there tails alone going on for meters. We keep following the whales as calmly as we can getting incredibly close as they dive a little deeper this time around.
For a long moment our collective breaths are held hoping the whales might reappear and luck is with us is after a minute or two of silence they re-emerge up ahead now swimming directly out towards a massive iceberg which lurks between us and the drake and providing the perfect background for some photos that I’m quite proud of.
I can’t believe it but we leave the whales because a few people need to pee, granted we had spent a lot of time with them and they were heading towards rougher waters, still for me there’s no such thing as too much time with whales.
Back on board we have a quick lunch and then slowly start the process of readying the boat to get going the coming morning, lots of cleaning tasks and making sure everything is secure in case we encounter rough seas.
When the subject of the leopard seals come up though Tash, Ulises, and Mariana are curious and another zodiac outing develops, no one else shows any interest so there’s space for me and I’m eager to do as much as I possibly can on our last day properly in Antarctica.
We hop in and Darrel runs us over to the seals though sadly the leopard has disappeared which is frustrating, but when he offers to drop us off there while he goes to check if the Argentinean base has any foil I’m glad I came.
We make an only slightly contested landing from the fur seals and then Darrel speeds us leaving us alone in a group of three different kinds of seals.
Proud of my sea urchin find, a creature which always reminds of back home on the east coast of Canada I return to the group and we decide to get up close and personal with the resting seals who don’t seem too bothered at all. We also create some where’s Waldo photographs because I do look a lot like a seal, As does Tash.
Darrel eventually returns in the zodiac not having had any success on his foil mission. You might say the mission was foiled from the lack of foil. I’m sorry. anyway we climb back onto thezodiac and decide to go for a little bit more exploring finding a big group of Antarctic turns nesting in some small cliffs just a short distance away. Watching this agile little speed demons fish for crill and then fight with eachother is pretty damn fun.
It gets even better when the Turns turn (sorry again) there attention to harassing an innocent kelp gull perched on the rocks, attacking and molesting the much bigger bird for no apparent reason. Here’s the video.
Once the excitement of the turns dies down we head back towards the boat knowing there’s lots of work to do before our departure from Antarctica. We continue the cleanign process, pull the zodiac up and box it away, and then make sure that everything out on deck is tied up tightly. It’s a n early start and a hard goodbye to Antarctca tomorrow morning. It’s treated us to magic these past 20 days and while I’m not sure it’s likely, I hope to hell I find my way back here one day.
It’s been a beautiful mobile home for the last month and I’ll miss the spirit of sydney, even after what will be covered in the next entry, our journey back north across the Drake passage.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the Antarctica series on the blog and they’ll be lots more posts coming eventually addressing how to get to Antarctica and how to make the most of your trip. So keep checking back for all of those.
