My Trips

South Shetland Islands, January 29

There’s a ridge, more like a spine, that runs along the section of Barrientos Island where we had landed.  The ridge is about 100 feet above sea level, and you can look down on either shore of the island.  That’s why I was there, to get a view of the constantly churning penguin colonies, the sea lions lying immobile by the water and the bay where our ship was anchored.  But suddenly Eduardo called out, “Look out there!  There’s a lot of splashing.  I think there’s some hunting going on.”.  Almost immediately, we saw a leopard seal break the surface with a chinstrap penguin in its mouth.

We had heard about how leopard seals hunt. 

This time of year it’s well into nesting season.  The chicks have hatched and are hungry.  Parent penguins take to the water to feed on krill and other goodies and then return to shore to give up their meals to greedy chicks.  The colony is in constant motion.  Parents coming and going to the water.  Chicks madly chasing adults looking for regurgitated goodies.  Some mis-guided adults carrying found or stolen rocks around in a too-late effort to build a nest.  With all the activity, it’s the perfect place for leopard seals to patrol off-shore hoping to pick off an isolated penguin.

When a leopard seal captures a penguin, its job is to get at the meat inside.  So, it removes the head and violently slap its capture against the surface of the water until eventually the penguin is turned inside out, the skin is removed, and the seal can eat.

So, yeah, I knew how leopard seals hunt.  I had read about it and heard about it.  But here I was seeing it in person, no more than a couple of dozen feet from shore.  On one hand, it was incredibly powerful to witness.  The seal would whack the penguin on the surface.  It would toss it 10 feet across the water like it was playing with a toy.  This went on for several minutes and it was an amazing act to watch.  The harsh reality of nature on display.

On the other hand, the only creatures taking notice of this were the ones in the orange parkas.  None of the inhabitants seemed to take notice.  None of them stopped whatever they were doing.  There was no dramatic soundtrack or slow-motion footage.  Penguins went on about their lives with complete indifference.  Elephant seals kept sleeping, chicks kept chasing, adults kept stealing rocks, and others went back and forth within sight of the killing ground as if nothing was going on.  Just a normal day in the colony.  Life goes on.  Critters go about their business.

This was our first landfall in Antarctica.  We had come to Barrientos Island, one of the South Shetland Islands, just north and west of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Our day had started early on the bridge.  It was misty and cloudy and the water was choppy.  We were waiting to cross the Antarctic Convergence, the area where the “warm” northern water meets the colder water flowing from the south.  There’s often a change in the water color. There can be fog and other changes.  We were looking for our first traces of ice floating in the ocean.  There were albatrosses, petrels, terns and skuas around the ship.

Almost immediately, we spotted fin whales, and then humpbacks.  Going out on the bow, we saw large “rafts” of penguins porpoising by the ship.  Much like dolphins, penguins will shoot along the surface to breathe without slowing their forward motion.

As thrilling as all of that was, the bigger show came next.  The biggest animal that has lived, larger than any dinosaur, the blue whale, paid us a visit.  Not just one blue whale, but three.  Because our ship is relatively small, we get a better perspective of how massive these animals are.  At first glance, they look much the same as fin whales.  A small dorsal fin a quite a long way down the back.  Not a lot of the whale shows above the surface at any one time.  But then, once you’re closer to them, and can look down into the clear water, you realize that the scale is different.  The back is very broad.  It looks like someone could fit inside the blowhole.  When I was young, one of my favorite things to at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum was to visit the blue whale model.  It took up a whole room.  I loved to walk along its length, to pass underneath it and to look into its eye.  After all these years, I could do that again.  I didn’t quite get to look it in the eye, but this was better.  Too soon, the whales went on their way and so did we.  We had landfall to make.

After the eventful morning, the adrenaline was already running when the expedition leader announced we had arrived at Barrientos Island and it was time to go ashore. Our frenzy began.  Put on the thermal layer and liner socks.  Pants.  Second layer of socks.  Shirt.  Sweater.  Hat.  Gloves.  Parka.  Sunglasses.  Camera.  GoPro.  You hope you remembered to go to the bathroom, because there was no undoing it all now.  Then, trudge down to the mudroom.  Put on the waterproof pants and boots.  (Pants go on the outside of the boots so seawater doesn’t go over the boot tops when going ashore.). Then lifejacket for the zodiac ride ashore.  In time this would all become routine, and we would get better at selecting how many layers to wear depending on conditions, but for this first time, it was a bit of a hubbub.  Excited chaos.

When you go ashore at penguin colony nearby, the first thing you notice is the smell.  Depending on wind direction, you notice it long before you actually reach shore.  While it’s hard to describe, it’s a smell you don’t easily forget.  Until there’s smellovision, that’s something you won’t experience watching March of the Penguins. 

The second thing you notice is the mud.  At least we chose to call it mud.  On this landing, we came ashore in the middle of the colony, so the “mud” was a mixture of real mud, feathers, seaweed, guano, penguin feathers and other unknowable ingredients.

The third thing you notice is the noise.  There’s a constant screeching that goes on.  Chicks calling out for food.  Adults trying to find chicks or each other.  Adults stretching as tall as they could, spreading their stubby little wings and howling to the sky.  Oh, and elephant seals belching.

Once you get past the immediate impressions that hit you on stepping ashore, you begin to notice the little things.  You start to focus on individual behaviors.  The penguins here were gentoos and chinstraps.  Chinstraps were named for obvious reasons.  I have no idea how the gentoo penguin got its name, but I like it anyway.  These two species are able to co-exist in what passes for harmony because they exploit different feeding strategies and their incubation times are slightly different.  The chinstraps feed farther from shore, while the gentoos stay closer to home and dive deeper.

We became absorbed in watching all of the mini-dramas, so it didn’t feel long until it was time to head back to the ship.  Now everything happened in opposite order.  Life jacket back on over the parka.  Get back on the zodiac and onto the ship.  Pass through the scrubbing and disinfecting stations.  (You don’t want to carry guano smell around with you the rest of the day.)  Take off the waterproof pants and boots and leave them in the mudroom locker to dry for next time.  Head up to the cabin, peel off the layers, and go to the bathroom.

But even after all that, our day wasn’t over.  The ship weighed anchor and a couple of hours later we passed through a narrow straight called Neptune’s Bellows into Whalers Bay at Deception Island.  The bay was actually a collapsed volcanic caldera, and a perfect location for a whaling station.  On this day of firsts, this was also our first taste of polar weather, at least the summer version.  Clouds descended.  The sun, which barely dips below the horizon in the Austral Summer, became dim.  And the wind howled.  Although this was a protected bay, it was far from calm.  The wind blew the tops off the whitecaps, creating long streaks of foam across the water.  Long abandoned, the buildings of the whaling station have rusted, aged and partially collapsed.  With the twilight and weather, it created the kind of dreary and foreboding landscape you would expect to find in this remote part of the world.

We headed back through Neptune's Bellows and headed south.