That’s what it felt like during my recent trip to Antarctica. A tail here, a fin there, and the occasional glimpse of a blow hole or mouth. My companions and I wanted to see more.
A humpback whale tail in Antarctica. Photo copyright Glen Gould 2009.
We were sitting in a small Zodiac boat in icy cold water watching mammals that are 50 feet long. What if one came up under the boat? I guess we trusted the whales knew what they were doing. They trusted we weren’t going to harpoon them.
A humpback whale fin. Photo copyright Glen Gould 2009.
You might have seen photos of whales jumping out of the water. That’s what we wanted to see. But these whales were feeding. Feeding humpbacks don’t do that, which made watching them a challenge. The whales typically approach a large gathering of krill from below, then drive them towards the surface, with mouth open. The whale engulfs the krill, snaps its mouth shut, and squishes the water out. A tasty meal.
A humpback whale dorsal fin. Photo copyright Glen Gould 2009.
A humpback whale mouth. Photo courtesy of the Polar Star staff.
One of the ways to tell that you’ve passed from the Atlantic Ocean into the Southern Ocean is the appearance of albatrosses. This Royal Albatross is one of the several kinds of sea birds that became constant companions to the Polar Star during my recent expedition to Antarctica.
Royal Albatross. Photo copyright Glen Gould. Click to see a larger version.
Like many living creatures on earth, the albatross faces many threats. 100,000 albatrosses die each year from ingesting fish hooks. Most of the hooks are discarded by fishing boats when the fisherman toss out waste and bait. BirdLife International is trying to stop these deaths with their Save the Albatross campaign. Check it out.
The Drake Passage is the 600 mile wide channel between the tip of South America (Cape Horn) and the South Shetland Islands. It connects the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Until the Panama Canal was built, ships had to travel around Cape Horn to get from one ocean to the other.
The Drake is notorious for rough water. When I left Ushuaia, Argentina on December 19 for Antarctica, I was apprehensive about the passage. Would I encounter fierce storms or “Drake Lake?” Like my shipmates, I slapped on a seasick-prevention patch as soon as the ship set out in the Beagle channel and hoped for the best.
Although I thought I had secured everything in the cabin, I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of various items rolling and crashing about the the cabin. I couldn’t walk because of the roll of the ship, so I crawled from my bed to gather and secure the items. I learned never to leave the lid of the toilet open on a ship, lest the medicine cabinet fly open and empty its contents into it!
When morning came (which is difficult to tell with the nearly constant daylight), the rolling lessened just a bit. I crawled to the couch and shot some video. My cabin was on deck 5 in the bow of the ship, so the windows point slightly skyward. So when sitting on the couch in a calm sea, I should see only the sky. As you can see in the video, I was able to see sky and sea alternating. That gives you an idea of the roll of the ship. You can also get an idea of the roll by the movement of the sunlight through the window.
I later checked with the bridge and found out that the worst roll that night was 30 degrees to each side, with waves as much as 6 meters. The wind was a Force 8 gale on the Beaufort scale. The Drake wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but I was happy I put the seasick-prevention patch on.
Our Captain adjusted our course, changing the itinerary, so that the ship (M/V Polar Star) was going with the sea rather than against it. That smoothed out the rest of the passage considerably.
The passage on the way back from Antarctica was essentially smooth, the waves being only 3 to 4 meters. and the wind a Force 6 strong breeze.
In the upcoming weeks I’ll be writing more about my adventures in Antarctica. It was a fabulous trip—a dream come true thanks to Polar Star Expeditions.
Like