Cuverville Island and Dallmann Bay, Antarctica
It would have been a superb day even without the humpback whales, and the seals, and the snow petrels; with them, it was off the scale, a fitting finale to our voyage around the Antarctic Peninsula. Our day began at Cuverville Island for one last visit with gentoo penguins. There we witnessed the eternal Antarctic pas de deux, penguin and skua. We climbed up a rocky ridge for a view out over the ice-filled channel, and boarded Zodiacs to cruise to the face of the glacier, where icebergs are born. We absorbed each of the images, trying to take away as much of Antarctica as our personal memory banks will allow.
We departed Cuverville and headed into Dallmann Bay, between Anvers and Brabant Islands, reputed to be a good place to find humpback whales. Find them we did, or perhaps they found us. The ship’s sonar revealed a rich layer of krill and the whales made repeated dives, over and over, as they gradually restore the blubber layer that was depleted during the previous Austral winter when they were in more tropical waters, probably off the coast of Colombia. One whale interrupted its feeding to wave its massive flukes, slapping the water to cause a mighty splash, and even gave us a partial breach. We moved farther into Lapeyrère Bay. It is lined completely with glaciers that descend steeply from the mountains above. The bay was filled with brash ice, small broken chunks and shards of glacial ice, and here seals found refuge from marauding orca or killer whales. We found an abundance of leopard, crabeater, weddell, and Antarctic fur seals all lounging on the ice, basking in the bright afternoon sun and perhaps, like us, luxuriating in the absence of wind. The red stains on the ice near this leopard seal indicate that it, too, was finding its fill of krill. We remained in the Bay throughout dinner, slowly cruising to give an ever-changing view through the windows of the dining room. Then, as the last light of the setting sun gave a pink glow to the tops of ice clad peaks, we headed northward into the Drake. Antarctica may be now fading from view behind us, but it will always be part of us. Next season, when most of us will be elsewhere, penguins and skuas will still do their dance of life and death, downy young penguins will chase their parents, whales will still wave their tails, and ice will complete its journey from land to sea. May it ever be so.
It would have been a superb day even without the humpback whales, and the seals, and the snow petrels; with them, it was off the scale, a fitting finale to our voyage around the Antarctic Peninsula. Our day began at Cuverville Island for one last visit with gentoo penguins. There we witnessed the eternal Antarctic pas de deux, penguin and skua. We climbed up a rocky ridge for a view out over the ice-filled channel, and boarded Zodiacs to cruise to the face of the glacier, where icebergs are born. We absorbed each of the images, trying to take away as much of Antarctica as our personal memory banks will allow.
We departed Cuverville and headed into Dallmann Bay, between Anvers and Brabant Islands, reputed to be a good place to find humpback whales. Find them we did, or perhaps they found us. The ship’s sonar revealed a rich layer of krill and the whales made repeated dives, over and over, as they gradually restore the blubber layer that was depleted during the previous Austral winter when they were in more tropical waters, probably off the coast of Colombia. One whale interrupted its feeding to wave its massive flukes, slapping the water to cause a mighty splash, and even gave us a partial breach. We moved farther into Lapeyrère Bay. It is lined completely with glaciers that descend steeply from the mountains above. The bay was filled with brash ice, small broken chunks and shards of glacial ice, and here seals found refuge from marauding orca or killer whales. We found an abundance of leopard, crabeater, weddell, and Antarctic fur seals all lounging on the ice, basking in the bright afternoon sun and perhaps, like us, luxuriating in the absence of wind. The red stains on the ice near this leopard seal indicate that it, too, was finding its fill of krill. We remained in the Bay throughout dinner, slowly cruising to give an ever-changing view through the windows of the dining room. Then, as the last light of the setting sun gave a pink glow to the tops of ice clad peaks, we headed northward into the Drake. Antarctica may be now fading from view behind us, but it will always be part of us. Next season, when most of us will be elsewhere, penguins and skuas will still do their dance of life and death, downy young penguins will chase their parents, whales will still wave their tails, and ice will complete its journey from land to sea. May it ever be so.
