Tuesday 16 February 2010

DAY 35 Feb 16 - Dallmann Bay,Paradise Bay, Courverville Island and Deception Island

Last night as we cruised through the iceberg filled seas towards Dallmann Bay, much further north at the top of Ambers Island. We still had quite good visibility as it obviously never get completely dark down here in the Antarctic.

Maria was concerned at the number of icebergs we were passing tonight as she looked out from our balcony at 11.30 pm and hoped that whoever was on bridge watch didn’t fall asleep at the wheel!! She genuinely was concerned with the possibility of a mishap!

Today’s programme said that we would be cruising in the Dallman Bay from about 5.00 am heading in a southerly direction towards the Straits of Gerlache and onwards to scenic Paradise Bay and Couverville Island later.

Between the hours of 5-7 we expected to see plenty of whales but so far we have only spotted a couple blowing and splashing in the cold icy sea.

The sun is not shining this morning, it is more overcast but still very pleasant and we are told more like what Antartican weather normally throws up. It was certainly much colder than yesterday despite there being no wind. Plenty of layers were in order.

We were on deck for a while looking for wild life but instead ran into Françoise surveying his domain and also doing a little whale spotting himself.

We managed to find two whales playing in the distance. He confirmed just how lucky we were with the weather and told us how well this compared with what happen on this same cruise last year.

Penguins were of course every-where and they soon became the magnet for our camera as in small shoals they scurried away from the ship, stirring up the cold waters in the process. We also saw them sitting inquisitively on icebergs we passed.

Gerry was also around for a while and we compared notes on yesterday’s happenings and what we could expect today. We were surprised to hear from her that all our table mates had made the dining room last night as we had opted for the quick serve yourself meal in the Lido.

In this way we were not interru-pting our views and photo oppor-tunities with the amazing wilderness around us.

During the day she and husband Gary usually sat up in the Crow’s Nest with its comfortable seating and 180 degree wrap around forward facing windows.

Exploration comm-entator, John, alerted us from the bridge that a spectacular iceberg was rapidly app-roaching on the port side of the ship. Our side. The upper deck soon filled up with iceberg spotting passengers looking for this potentially amazingly unique photo opportunity.

We spotted Robin and Jennifer and Gerry and Gary on the deck above with of course cameras in hand.

We retired downstairs to our cabin, where we could better see the iceberg. Deden and Edger were already at work making our cabin like new once again.

The view from our balcony that greeted us as we passed the iceberg was more than specta-cular.

Its size, texture and colouring were all mind-blowing.

Pat Toomey, the Ice Captain Pilot, said that this same berg was here last year as well.

It had us, plus our wonderful two cabin stewards, mesmerized by its majestic beauty. We all posed for photos with it in the background.

Was today going to be even better than yesterday? Surely not! This must have been the mother of all icebergs as far as this Antarctic Segment of the cruise is concerned!

An hour or so later we approached the ‘must see’ Paradise Bay.

Paradise Bay is a harbour in West Antarctica that is sometimes used as a bolt hold for ships that seek shelter when the weather turns for the worse in these parts. It is one of only two ports that may be used by cruise ships to stop on the continent; the other is Neko Harbour. We will not be using the port however. This library photo shows the Caledonian Star in the Bay.

The Argentinean scientific base, Almirante Brown Antarctic Base, is located on the banks of Paradise Bay, as is the Chilean scientific base, González Videla Antarctic Base.

We were still on whale watch and the bridge personnel are hoping to alert us to some sights of these giant mammals in blowing action. Again we are so pleased that we had the bow camera of the ship sending pictures right into our cabin.

I don’t know if its to give greater effect to where we currently are but the heating and hot water supply on the ship seems to have been interrupted. It’s getting a little chilly in our stateroom and the cold shower that all English public (private) school boys are brought up on is not something that Maria nor I wish to experience!!

We spotted a Russian exploration passenger ship at anchor by the Argen-tinean station. This ship, chartered by an American tour company, specializes in these ‘hands-on’ Antarctic experience vacations.

Its passengers could bee seen on the cliffs above the station. Lucky passengers I thought to myself.

One or two of the quite amazingly shaped icebergs we passed did really take ones breath away.

The one in the picture here was a real object of art. Who made it so beautiful? Was it the penguins or just nature?

From time to time Maria and I would leave our now quite cool cabin and visit the aft deck to ensure we missed nothing on the starboard side of the ship.

On one such occasion we passed a lady in the hot tub, which was without doubt now the hottest place on the ship. Maria looks like she may be tempted?

After several hours circling the serene and beautiful Paradise Bay we moved north west to the Andvord Bay then onwards to Couverville Island.

On route we passed another Russian ship that works in these waters during the Antarctic summer. It normally has about 130 passengers on board and like the other Russian ship is on charter to a US company and offers specialist Antarctic cruises.

Cuverville Island or Île de Cavelier de Cuverville is a dark, rocky island lying in Errera Channel between Arctowski Peninsula and the northern part of Rongé Island, off the west coast of Graham Land. This Island is located at 64°41′S 62°38′W / 64.683°S 62.633°W / -64.683; -62.633. It was discovered by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897-1899) under Adrien de Gerlache, who named it for J.M.A. Cavelier de Cuverville (1834-1912), a vice-admiral of the French Navy.

In summer, Cuverville is often home to a well-sized rookery of Gentoo penguins

The long Errera Channel round the Courville Bay is again made up of touring snow clad cliffs and mountains that reach steeply down to the waters edge. The vista can only be described as Eastman, Kodak and Technicolor all rolled into one.

Words really can not adequately express what we have seen today.

Our friends agree with us that neither their narrative not their photos can do any justice to what we are all experiencing. It is just pure simple rugged nature set in a white wild wilderness and never-ending tranquil waters.

We broke for lunch but were soon back on deck, camera in, hand looking at whales and a large penguin colony. Unfortunately whale spotting is an art if photos are involved because of the interval between the spotting and the camera delay after the pressing of the button.

Maria cleverly caught a picture of one of the glaciers that was about to break off and form another large iceberg to threaten future ships cruising in these waters. Again the texture and colour of the ice is just unimaginable and no artist could ever produce something quiet so exquisite.

After seeing no other ships for several days we now saw our third passenger ship that was offering these specialized Antarctic experiences for a hand full of lucky people.

For most of the late afternoon the ship headed north to Deception Island passing magnificent scenery of more touring white mountains as we cruised along dodging the icebergs.

Deception Island (62°57'S, 60°38'W) is an island located in the South Shetland Islands off the northwest side of the Antarctic Peninsula and has been a focus of human activity in Antarctica since the early 1820s with the hunting of seal. In fact, the island was given its name by the American sealer Nathanial Palmer who visited the island in 1820. But in the early 1900s, when seals were nearly hunted to extinction, Antarctic hunters turned to whaling.

In the austral summer of 1906-7, a Norwegian Captain, Adolfus Andresen, began whaling and establish the Hektor whaling station at Deception Island in a place called Whalers Bay.

Factory ships took full advantage of the protect cove and processed whale blubber into whale oil, valuable commodity for lubrication, lighting, and other purposes in the early 20th century. The actual whaling station did not in fact process whale blubber, but instead took the carcasses and boiled them down to extract additional whale oil, using large iron boilers, and storing the results in iron tanks.

The rusty remains of these boilers and tanks can still be seen today.

Whalers established residences that included a kitchen, hospital, and a small cemetery: 45 men were buried in the station's cemetery (38 Norwegians, 3 Swedes, 1 Briton, 1 Chilean, 1 Russian and one of unknown origin), but the cemetery was buried in a 1969 volcanic eruption.

In 1931 the Hektor station was closed due to the drop in price of whale oil which made it no longer profitable to hunt whales in the Antarctic.

British researchers then used the same site for their scientific station until it was finally abandoned on February 23 1969 because of volcanic eruptions that serious damaged the station buildings.

The ruins of this station are the most complete remains of whaling history in the Antarctic and governments have agreed to let the remains stand, undisturbed, to be seen and understood as part of maritime history and to show the immense power of the volcanic activity that still haunts the island.

As can be seen in this satellite photo shown below, 57% of the island is covered by permanent glaciers and it has a very distinct horse-shoe shape appearance with a large submerged caldera in its center.

This crater opens to the sea through a narrow channel called the Neptune's Bellows, forming one of the safest naturally sheltered harbours in Antarctica and is the most-visited site in the Antarctic.

Several nations still conduct scientific research here, including Spain, Britain, Argentina, and Chile. The volcanic eruptions has mostly taken care of other attempts to maintain permanent facilities, and as of 2000, there are only two scientific stations still in use today, Spain has Gabriel de Castilla, and Argentina its Decepción station. These stations are only in use during the Austral summer months.

Unfortunately our progress to the Island was slowed down considerably by our first Antarctic fog which coupled with the enormous amount of icebergs we passed meant that it was by no means full speed ahead.

Once again we had decided to miss dinner in the dining room so as to be able to take photos when we arrived at the original ETA of 7.00 which was then changed to 8.00.

What a shame that the views we had of Deception were limited and no photographs were taken by us so we just have the library pictures above.

The Captain had earlier announced that heating and hot water had been restored to the ship and as a way of apology drinks were on him tonight!

Between 5-6 all the bars would offer free drinks to the first sitting guests and between 7-8 for the second sitting guests. Needless to say the bars were packed and every available staff members was recruited to look after the thirsty passengers.

We went up to the Crow's Nest after our Lido meal to find it packed with no available seats in sight. However Bill and Mary Ann were perched on their usual seats so we hooked up with them and Bruce and Mary Ellen were also there making a rare visit to the top bar in the ship.

It was nice to also bump into Robin and Jennifer who really are a lovely couple of people with good senses of humour, just our kinds of people.

Having been up since 5.30, whale spotting I recall, and having had no afternoon nap, I was quite exhausted by 9 so was in my bed with lights off by 10 o'clock. It meant that we misses the normally very good Indonesian Crew show although I know it would be re-shown on TV today.

Some of the sunsets down here are really quiet beautiful and something to savor late at night over a cocktail or two.

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