February 19, 2020 – Day 3
The next day, at 10am, we crossed the Antarctic Circle. There was a celebration: the crew dressed up and wore funny hats and there were mimosas for everyone. It felt noticeably colder, but maybe that was just my imagination. Not many ships get down past the Antarctic Circle - the Ocean Nova has only been twice this year, the Magellan (the other Antarctica XXI ship) has been twice, as well.
Antarctica is the only continent which has never had permanent human habitation. Though Thomas Cook sailed around the Antarctica in 1773, he never actually sighted it and the actual existence of the continent was only definitively established in 1820. Only about 800,000 people have ever been to Antarctica (that is, south of 60°, the political boundary). Of course, most of those people have been tourists who came in the last 15, or so, years. At any one time, there are only about 5,000 scientists on the whole continent in the summer and under 1,000 who overwinter. If only 800,000 people have ever been to Antarctica in the whole of human history, only about 100,000 have crossed the Antarctic Circle, currently at 66° 33.8096 (it moves constantly, but that’s where it is right now). It’s just a mark on the map, but I found it pretty exciting to cross it on this trip.
That afternoon, we landed at Holdfast Point, and set foot on Antarctic soil below the Circle. It was a tough spot to land and the Expedition Crew laid ropes for us to use while climbing up the slippery rocks from the landing site. We saw some Adélie penguins (and their nearly grown chicks) on shore, our only sight of them close up. Then we spent almost four hours shooting icebergs from zodiacs in the bay near Holdfast Point.
Seth and JP’s workshop focuses on shooting landscapes - icebergs, in particular. That suited me, as I am a landscape photographer and have failed miserably when I have tried to photograph wildlife in the past. But… when there’s an opportunity to visit an Adélie penguin rookery, and step onto the continent, I’m not going to pass it up!
February 20 – Day 4
I woke up the next morning around 5am. I lay in bed a little while then just decided to get up and brush my teeth and see what was happening on deck. When I came out of the bathroom, Lauren, my roommate, was also awake so we turned on the lights and opened the blind and, lo and behold, it was a wonderland out there: low-hanging clouds over the mountains of the Fish Islands, still water and lots of sea ice. It was, honestly, what I dreamed Antarctica would be - blues and greys and whites and soft, soft light. Instantly I was energized, threw on my clothes and headed out onto the deck to shoot. It snowed a little, but mainly what I remember from that lovely early morning is the silence, the gorgeous still water, the reflections and the soft light. At 5:30am, I was alone on the top deck of the ship, just drinking it all in. To me, that morning will always be a wonderful memory from the trip.
We did a zodiac excursion in the morning, in an area of sea ice and icebergs between the Fish Islands, but by that time, the lovely reflections were gone. Still it was beautiful to drift in and out of the iceberg field, seeing the amazing blues of the ice and the greens of the iceberg tongues (those parts sticking out from the main iceberg, visible under water)
Near the time we were to return to the ship, a storm blew up - high winds and a bit of snow. The ride back in the zodiac was quite a bumpy adventure and definitely chilly. Such a dramatic scene! Despite the cold, I loved it! A nice hot shower after we got back to the ship and a hot lunch had me feeling warm and comfortable soon enough.
After lunch, the photo workshop group got together to critique some of the images we had shot so far.
The snow made for low visibility and we had some lovely minimalist scenes out the library windows (which span the whole of the stern of the ship) where we had gathered to critique images. No one seemed to mind that I quietly snuck out onto deck to shoot the icebergs. It was a bit treacherous with the wind and snow, but beautiful.
In the afternoon we did a shore outing to a Ukrainian research station (Vernadksy Research Base). The scientists talked about the winter snow drifts that get up to the second floor of the station. As we were listening to the introduction from one of the scientists outside, two others came out of two different buildings in flipflops and shorts. It was about -1°C! As we all laughed, the scientist giving the tour said, "Well, it's summer - that’s why they are dressed that way." Research conducted from this station focuses on geophysics, meteorology and ionospherics, although it sits right in the middle of a penguin colony (the smell of which, you can’t miss!). When we were inside, I looked out the window to see penguins on the rocks in front of the station. They were standing stock still and looked like oddly-placed lawn ornaments, until they started moving.
Antarctica has been governed since 1961 by the Antarctic Treaty and its related agreements. The goal of the Treaty is to preserve the continent’s pristine, untouched state as much as possible. From the first human sighting of the continent in the early 19th century until the Treaty was signed, many countries made claims on the territory of Antarctica. The Treaty suspended those claims so that no country has sovereignty over any part of the continent. The Treaty also states that no commercial activity (except low-impact tourism) can happen on the continent – no mining, no drilling – and there can be no military presence, either. There are, however, 70 permanent scientific research stations, many of them on the Peninsula. The whole of Antarctica is dedicated only to science and to peace, another reason it is a truly unique part of the world.
After a tour of the Vernadsky station, many of us from the workshop went out on zodiacs to photograph icebergs in the nearby bay. JP asked for the driver to turn off the engine in our zodiac, as one point, so we could just sit for a moment and listen to the sounds of the water and the waves. It was quiet and lovely and I thought, “What an amazing privilege it is to be here".
February 21 – Day 5
We had two excursions by zodiac the next day, both to Pléneau Bay, which lies just south of the Lemaire Channel. This protected bay, also called the ‘Iceberg Graveyard’, is a place where bits of large tabular icebergs and older, rolled icebergs have run aground. Many of these icebergs have come from as far as the Ross Ice Shelf, carried by the Antarctic Current. We saw some amazing icebergs there and, actually, had some nice light, though some people said the skies could have been more dramatic. I'm not opposed to a flat cloudy sky, it’s so much better than sunshine, at least for me. The icebergs are these amazing blue/green, almost fluorescent, colours. They are like no colour I’ve ever seen in nature.
The only downside to our visit to Pléneau Bay was that it was pouring with rain in the morning. I was happy for every penny I spent on Gore-Tex and layers for this trip, as I stayed nice and warm and dry. The issue was the camera - if you didn’t wipe your lens after every shot, or every second shot, images were ruined. It rained on and off, as well, in the afternoon, but I still loved both outings.
People who had been on this trip with Seth and JP before mentioned that they were seeing a lot less sea ice and that the icebergs themselves seemed smaller than in the past (though they seemed huge to me). The breaking off of a huge chunk of the Pine Island Glacier has created a ‘bottleneck’ in the Antarctic Current, trapping many large icebergs behind it. The lack of sea ice may be due to winds and currents more than warming seas, but the thinning and collapse of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers are almost certainly due to climate change. There is no question that the Antarctic Peninsula is being deeply affected. Mean temperatures in Antarctica have risen 2.5°C since the 50s, but the change has not affected the whole continent evenly: the Antarctic Peninsula (where we were) is warming much faster than the rest of the continent. In the weeks before I left for my trip, two new high temperature records were set on the Peninsula – on February 9 the temperature was 20.75°C, surpassing the record set just three days before. Many of my friends said, when I told them I was going to Antarctica, that it was good I was going ‘before it all melts’. Of course, that is not going to happen in my lifetime (especially as the much larger ice sheet of East Antarctica is still relatively stable) but changes are accelerating at an alarming pace and the melting of the ice that is happening right now will affect not only Antarctica and all its wildlife, but the whole world. Seeing this incredible wilderness and knowing that it is under such threat made every outing and every scene bittersweet.
On our afternoon zodiac trip we came across a number of leopard seals lounging on the ice. We photographed them from the zodiac but then one of the seals came off the ice, into the water and circled around the zodiac swimming underneath us and next to us for about 10 minutes. I couldn’t believe how sinuously beautiful she was and how quickly she moved. Though leopard seals are apex predators (they eat penguins, but also other seals and have large, fearsome canines), she seemed more curious about us than anything else. Watching her was truly magical: I could easily have stayed there all afternoon, but our zodiac driver said we couldn’t stay too long for fear of habituating the seals to our presence. I remember watching Paul Nicklen talk about his encounter with a leopard seal back in 2009 but at that time I never thought I’d see one myself and not close up like we did. What a gift!
Between outings we stayed in Pléneau Bay, enjoying this gorgeous scene.
In the evening we passed, again, through the Lemaire Channel (this time heading north), with some nice soft light, but not the fantastic reflections we’d had on the way down.
Go to Part III of the blog.