A Little Drizzle, a few Adelies

Ocean Tramp – Lori

An early morning start, down the very beautiful Peltier Channel in the drizzly mist. On one side, the Antarctic typical black and white mountains, on the other the glacial ice. In addition to the blueness of the snow, you also become aware of layers of pink, green and yellow. This is the critical algae that helps feed the world food chain. As the summer sun hits the ice, the algae blooms, getting more intense throughout the season. This will ultimately wash into the sea, feed the krill, which, in turn, feeds the many marine animals down here. This is one of the reasons why this area of the world is just so critical to the environmental health of the planet. Literally the start of the food chain.

After we leave the vista of the Peltier Channel, we are out on the open sea, again navigating the ice floes. We are headed to newly-opened Torgersen. There is an international group, known as IAATO, the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. Their ultimate goal is to get all the operators who come down here to be members. Together, all the operators share information, and “book” spaces at the start of each season, so that no one single location gets overloaded by human intervention. As part of that protection, there are certain locations that are not always open at all times. Torgersen is one of them.

Torgersen is also a protected rookery for the Adelie Penguins, closed until mid January for humans. Unlike the Gentoos we’ve seen previously spread out all over like a giant city, the Adelie congregate in individual areas, as if
each one belongs to a specific neighborhood. And their call is completely different than the Gentoos; it is much deeper, gutteral, versus the higher tones of the Gentoos.

PS: we got word back yesterday that there have been some comments on the blog (hi, sistie of mine, yup, it’s me doing the writing!), thanks so much.

Glad to know folks are reading and travelling along with us

Blog: Lori Ryerson
Photo: Damian Foxall