Brown Bluff, The Antarctic Peninsula
How can we describe this wondrous day? It really began yesterday with our crossing of the Bransfield Strait and encounter with the pack ice—sea ice formed during the past winter, now drifting in the circular current (gyre) of the Weddell Sea. Dense pack ice has been the ruin of many an Antarctic expedition, but not the cruise of the good ship Endeavour as Captain Lampe and his crew skillfully guided our vessel through and between the flows. By early morning we were in Antarctic Sound, just off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, surrounded by huge tabular icebergs. In contradiction to the pack ice, these are blocks of glacial ice that have slid off the Antarctic Continent to become part of a floating ice shelf. The well publicized breakup of the Larsen Ice shelf has released huge quantities of ice, in the form of tabular bergs, into the Southern Ocean.
The morning was brisk … OK, it was cold! … as we approached Brown Bluff for a landing on the Antarctic Peninsula, hence on the Antarctic Continent itself. Our Zodiacs pushed through grease ice—the first step in the freezing of the ocean—to reach the shore. There we encountered a greeting committee of Adelie penguins. This is a major breeding colony of Adelies and smaller numbers of gentoos. Most birds are in the early stage of their 35-day incubation, and incubating birds were lying down on their nests of stones warming one or two eggs against the sub-freezing air. Birds off of incubation duty were parading along the shore, one eye out for the leopard seals cruising just off shore waiting to snatch a meal from a departing rush of penguins heading out to feed. On this Lindblad Photo Expedition cameras new, old, and vintage were put to use as each sought a new angle on the scene, and myriad images were transferred to film, pixels, and the great cranial data bank for later reference and recall. And then we were off to make our way down the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula where further adventures await us.
How can we describe this wondrous day? It really began yesterday with our crossing of the Bransfield Strait and encounter with the pack ice—sea ice formed during the past winter, now drifting in the circular current (gyre) of the Weddell Sea. Dense pack ice has been the ruin of many an Antarctic expedition, but not the cruise of the good ship Endeavour as Captain Lampe and his crew skillfully guided our vessel through and between the flows. By early morning we were in Antarctic Sound, just off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, surrounded by huge tabular icebergs. In contradiction to the pack ice, these are blocks of glacial ice that have slid off the Antarctic Continent to become part of a floating ice shelf. The well publicized breakup of the Larsen Ice shelf has released huge quantities of ice, in the form of tabular bergs, into the Southern Ocean.
The morning was brisk … OK, it was cold! … as we approached Brown Bluff for a landing on the Antarctic Peninsula, hence on the Antarctic Continent itself. Our Zodiacs pushed through grease ice—the first step in the freezing of the ocean—to reach the shore. There we encountered a greeting committee of Adelie penguins. This is a major breeding colony of Adelies and smaller numbers of gentoos. Most birds are in the early stage of their 35-day incubation, and incubating birds were lying down on their nests of stones warming one or two eggs against the sub-freezing air. Birds off of incubation duty were parading along the shore, one eye out for the leopard seals cruising just off shore waiting to snatch a meal from a departing rush of penguins heading out to feed. On this Lindblad Photo Expedition cameras new, old, and vintage were put to use as each sought a new angle on the scene, and myriad images were transferred to film, pixels, and the great cranial data bank for later reference and recall. And then we were off to make our way down the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula where further adventures await us.
