Ice World, Part II

Okay, so I guess I shouldn´t be surprised that this post ended up needing to be broken in half. After 12 days of this incredible trip, there is a bit more to tell you about than can fit in a single posting! First, I need to clarify a few things since the last post. Amit would like me to tell you that the Drake Passage is widely recognized as the roughest seas in the world! The convergence, which is an area of ocean where the Southern Ocean meets the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, is extremely choppy and dangerous, particularly between South America and the Antarctic peninsula... this area is actually the narrowest space that the Southern Ocean has to squeeze through to continue to circulate the globe (just to clarify: when we were in elementary school, there was no such thing as the Southern Ocean, there were only four oceans- the Atlanta, Pacfic, Indian, and Arctic... now there is a fifth ocean, the Southern Ocean, that surrounds Antartica!). Second, we didn´t really pack for this particular adventure... as far as equipment, our travel agent in Ushuaia loaned us some waterproof pants, the ship gives you a nice red and black waterproof jacket (which you get to keep), and you borrow a pair of rubber water boots (like galoshes) to use for all of the landings. Underneath that gear, we wore long underwear, sweatshirts, and t-shirts, as well as our own winter hats, scarves, and gloves, which we brought because we knew that even southern South America is not that warm in summer. Finally, on Antarctica, there are only science research stations... no commercialism at all. If you want more information on the governance of Antarctica, look up the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 (it is governed by cooperating countries who believe it should only be used for international peace and science). Oh, and one more thing... we heard a GREAT phrase to describe the penguins of Antarctica. The director of the oldest science research station (now a British museum) calls penguins: Environmental Terrorists! The move in to a pristine island and completely take over, ruining the smells, the sounds, and the landscape! And while we thought they were VERY cute animals and enjoyed seeing them, we completely understood why a resident of Antarctica would consider them as such! Okay, so on to more stories! In addition to our exciting adventures with penguins and whales, we also had three really special interactions with seals. We saw five different types of seals during our trip: Weddell Seals, Leopard Seals, Crabeater Seals, Southern Elephant Seals, and Fur Seals (actually part of sea lion family). The most exciting interactions we had, though, were with the Leopard, Elephant, and Fur Seals. For those of you who have seen the movie Happy Feet, you know that Leopard Seals don´t have the best reputation... in fact, they are one of the only penguin-eating seals and they have a very intimidating presence, as they swim back and forth along the shore of penguin colonies, waiting for the adult penguins to jump in the water so that the Leopard seals can have lunch. They are also very playful seals, and they are very willing to entertain a few rafts full of tourists in the water. We had two different experiences where a single Leopard seal (you only really see them solo) came right up to our raft, popping its head in and out of the water, then diving back down and swimming around in circles, then popping back up on a different side of the raft. VERY cool, but also a big tease because it is very hard to get a picture when you never know where he will pop up next! Then, on our final day of landings, we stopped at two places, Deception Island and then Hannah Point, where we found ourselves face-to-face with huge colonies of seals! At Deception Island, a special doughnut shaped island that is actually an active volcano (the center of the volcano is currently filled with water), we walked along the beach and came upon a huge colony of about 40 Fur Seals. Now Fur Seals are special because they are not true seals... they are actually sea lions and they have a unique ability to stand up on the front flippers and walk, almost like a dog. The colony we saw was VERY active. A large group of males, they were fully engaged in fighting, playing, and chasing tourists on the beach! It was incredible to watch them, as again, we had the realization that we were very much the ones out of place... we were in their home, and what we were seeing was the furthest thing from training and taming that you can possibly get! Then, at Hannah Point, we once again were merely walking along a small trail on the shore when we came upon 3 different groups of 10 HUGE Elephant Seals. The largest member of the seal family, the Southern Elephant Seal gets its name from the special trunk-like appendage that the mature males develop to attract females. And not only do they have pretty impressive noses, but they have a pretty overpowering stench and quite notable vocals... they sound like some combination of a human baby crying, a large and angry dog, and a pig being chased around its pen! Again, standing only 15 feet away from these small groupings of Elephant Seals and watching them in their natural habitat was a completely humbling experience. In Antarctica, you finally have the opportunity to feel small and insignificant, one of many species that inhabits our planet. And with less than 50,000 visitors to Antarctica every year, the curiosity and friendliness of these animals is much more out of ignorance of human beings than out of overexposure to us (like park squirrels). As many of the Antarctic advocates claim, Antarctica is truly the last pristine wilderness and our experience with wildlife was unparalleled. One last story, and then I´m going to work on creating a slideshow to post on either YouTube or Picasa: on a few of the days of our trip, the sun peaked out from behind the clouds and we actually got pretty hot under our many layers and waterproof gear. At those times, it was extremely tempting to just jump in the water! At some point, I´m not sure when, I actually decided that I needed to go swimming in Antarctica. I just needed to say that I had done it... so I started asking the expedition staff when would be a good place. Finally, at Deception Island (an active volcano!), the staff offered to dig us a hot tub... right at the shoreline, the rocks and water is being heated by the magma that is relatively close to the surface and if you dig down 1-2 feet, you actually can create a HOT pit of water right next to the freezing Antarctic waters. So Amit and I put on our bathing suits (underneath our other 3-4 layers of warm clothes) and at the end of the landing, we stripped down, dove into the FROZEN water, and then immediately jumped into the hot tub! Then, just because we could, we went back to the freezing water for one more dip, and then back into the hot tub to warm up! It was crazy, but it was GREAT fun! We had a friend take our video, and lots of people offered to send us pictures of our dip, so we will post them as soon as we get them! A few more funny and/or interesting notes about our trip: The food on the trip was amazing! Every morning we had a full breakfast with eggs, meat, potatoes, fruit, yogurt, cereal, fresh baked muffins, etc. Lunch was an incredible buffet of salads, with a nice entree at the end, and dinner was a fancy plated meal... and both lunch and dinner had dessert at the end! Every meal had a vegetarian option, so there was LOTS for me to eat, and overall, we gorged ourselves. We also always got a fresh-baked snack mid-afternoon to tide us over because we were, of course, starving in the 6 hours between lunch and dinner! On the sixth or seventh night of the trip, we actually had an outdoor barbeque! The chef and his staff came out to the back deck of the ship and bbq'ed meat and veggies and they had a whole tropical spread of salads and desserts at the back of the ship. It was the best meal of the whole trip! Another famous experience in Antarctica (or any polar region) is the watch glaciers calve (break off in huge chunks with a very large crashing sound). Despite our best efforts of patiently watching and waiting, we did not see a HUGE piece fall off... although even the tiny bits that fall make a deceptively large noise! We visited the most southern post office in the world! It cost more than $3 to send a postcard, but we did get a few out in the mail... although we will likely beat the cards back to the US!!! Icebergs have a mind of their own, and at a few points during the trip, icebergs floated into very inconvenient places and our operations team had to do some fancy maneuvering to enable us to get on or off the ship! See the picture to the right... that was the ladder to get back on the ship, which was being completely blocked by an iceberg! Icebergs vary pretty dramatically in size. We saw many the size of a large house... and some that were pretty small as well. The largest iceberg ever actually recorded was the size of Jamaica! But it was completely flat and boring to see (unlike many of the very beautiful and interesting ones we photographed on our trip!=). There were 105 passengers on our ship. Our fellow passengers ranged from age 25 to about 75. There were about 20 or so Americans, and the rest were mostly Europeans and Australians. 17 passengers bought last minute tickets (like us), and the rest bought full price tickets for about 60% more! We got several comments from the older passengers that they actually loved having young couples on the trip because it made the whole experience more lively and energetic!!! So I guess they were okay that we paid MUCH less than them :). There were over 40 crew members for only 105 passengers on the ship! Overall, we had an incredibly wonderful time! Our first real experience on a cruise ship was fantastic (logistics, crew, food, accommodations) and our experience off the ship was even more amazing! After all of our encounters with the wildlife and our hours enjoying the scenery, we were pretty much left speechless... as a famous scientist once said so appropriately, we were truly aliens in Antarctica! If you ever want an experience to remind you why we need to recycle, waste less, drive our cars less, or make more frequent/larger donations to environmental conservation organizations, this was it. What a beautiful, untouched, untainted wilderness filled with fascinating, complex, marvelous animals! In addition to the pictures on this post and the last post, we plan to put up a full photo album of our best pictures from this trip. We will post a link on the blog directly to the album, so you should see it coming soon! Please keep leaving us comments... we LOVE your notes and will try to answer your questions whenever we can! Now we are off to Bariloche, chocolate capital of Argentina! Look forward to a yummy post coming soon! Love, Dena & Amit

Iceberg threatens the ship´s gangway (remember, you are only seeing about 15% of the iceberg, the rest is under water) Dena and our Polish Captain A crabeater seal wallowing in a freshwater pool on top of an iceberg One of the leopard seals that played with our raft Vernadsky research station (Ukranian base) Our expedition team pours shots to celebrate the southernmost point on our journey (which also happened to be the furthest south the ship has ever been) Posing in front of a glacier in Neko Harbor Two fur seals goofing around on the water´s edge Barbeque aboard the Polar Star Taking a dip in the frigid Antarctic waters (just so we could say we did!)