High Mountain views – from the Beach! – Bertrand

Thanks to all of our blog readers and thanks for the comments on the blog. You may not be able to see them, but are able to read them onboard – so keep up the comments! (We have to approve them comments once we have normal internet once we are back in Ushuaia) But we read the comments every morning at breakfast!!! Now to the last log entry from our guest scientist, Bertrand

Last morning we were awoken by strong noises around the boat: I thought that I slept too late and we were already taking up the anchor and leaving the bay. No no no! Everybody was still sleeping and as I looked through my window I could see we were surrounded by ice growlers that the wind was pushing against the hull. I asked Fede and Laura if we were in big trouble, but they were super relax : “our boat was built for this kind of things, what we have to do is to move slowly and push the ice chunks away, no worries guys !” Cool !

By the time we got ready, the ice had drifted a bit further and we lifted the anchor. A strange and enormous worm had felt in love with the anchor chain, so we had to delicately put it back in the water, sorry guy 🙂

We then sailed towards the end of the Yankee Bay close to the glacier. That was majestic, we could hear the ice cracking, mixed with the sounds of the penguin colonies and elephant seals on shore. A very peaceful moment, we were joined by Gentoo penguins in water and Antarctic shag and Artic sterns in the air.

We then sailed out of the bay, where the cold wind caught up. We could see a gigantic iceberg like a floating mountain as well as 2-3 humpback whales blowing, but we needed to head toward our next destination: the half—moon island, not very far away. We arrived on the western side and needed to check if the bottom was good for anchoring. Fede took a very sophisticated instrument: a lead weight attached to a string in order to scratch a bit of the bottom soil. Nothing came back when we retrieved it, so we just attached a Gopro to the weight and by chance the visibility was so great that we were able to record images of a sea floor rich in kelps, colorful algaes and sand patches. Pretty good for anchoring so let’s stay here until tomorrow!

After lunch we all went to shore to have a look at the different colonies of Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie Penguins that are spread around the small island. An elephant seal was sleeping on the beach, very little interested in our presence. Another big seal swam directly towards the zodiac on the shore: leopard seal, noooo ! They are well known to inspect inflatable boats using their… strong long teeth! We run quickly to try to convince it that our zodiac was very very not interesting, then realized it was not a leopard seal but a Weddell seal, another pretty big guy but less curious about inflatable things. It actually went on the ice and started sleeping quietly on its back.

The sun appeared through the clouds and we could see the great glaciers, cliffs and summits around us. The feeling was strange: it was like enjoying the view from a high summit in the Alps, but walking on a beach! We came across bleached whale, penguins and seal bones on the beach, as well as a broken whale boat reminding us this was a place where whales used to be hunted. Hopefully this will remain something from the past.

Some of us visited the few buildings belonging to an argentine base. There was no one in there but the doors were unlocked… except the rescue shelter in which you’re supposed to find all you need to survive in case of emergency: its door was closed with wooden planks, so we’ll remember to always carry a crow bar with us in case we need to use an emergency shelter !

Another group still had enough energy to climb the highest hill of the island. The hike in the snow was not that hard, but we had to be careful at the skuas: this birds tend to be aggressive when they see you coming towards their breeding grounds. The view was very rewarding, our boat Ocean Tramp appeared so small in this harbor surrounded by gigantic landscapes!! We then came back down sliding on our back in the snow… always checking for angry skuas.

Back on the boat, super-Miguel had cooked a delicious meal, reinventing enchilladas. That was so good after coming back from the cold. Everybody was then ready for sleep.

And as our friend Adam would repeat constantly: “What a day guys!”