The next few hours after surviving the Dreaded Drake Passage were like waking up from a coma into a beautiful new marine world for me. I’m the one who slept through most (but not enough) of the passage with an impressive case of seasickness. We sailed with a Peale’s Dolphin escort off and on, which was amazing. It seemed like they stayed with us for hours, checking us out while we checked them out. Our first stop was Penguin Island, whose name alone got us all excited. But too much wind meant we pushed on to King George’s Island, one of the South Shetland Islands.
On the way, we saw our first giant iceberg, cool in its own right, but made even cooler by about seven penguins on it. They were playing and sliding. A regular Happy Feet scene. We were beside ourselves. There were just SO MANY PENGUINS!! We had no idea of what was to come.
Captain Fede and Laura anchored us in Potter’s Cove, a pretty, calm little cove where the Argentinian Research Station Carlini sits on land and an Argentine Navy ship sits offshore. We got enthusiastic invitations to visit from both (of course!). I don’t think they get many visitors around here. We made the short hop to the station in two trips on the Zodiac. Most of the scientists and staff live there for twelve months, which seems like a long time on the frozen earth there, even if you can see glaciers, elephant seals, and penguins every day. Still, everyone seemed happy and eager to share their work with us.
Luna, a civilian who’s about halfway through her stay, gave us a great tour of the labs and the offices and told us anything we wanted to know about what they were doing. They dive in that frigid water and take water, soil, and algae samples at different depths, measuring changes over time. They dive every day, sometimes even in the winter, which is hard to fathom, seeing as we were pretty cold on land in their summer. The staff was pretty proud to show us their hyperbaric chamber (which they hadn’t used yet). We were impressed.
After a couple of hours and some tea and snacks, we got back on the the Zodiacs and headed to the Navy ship.. It’s 30-year-old ship purchased from Russia and replacing what was apparently a REALLY old ship. A lot of the writing on signs on the ship is in Russian, which was cool. We got a tour delivered in perfect English and again, were allowed to answer whatever we wanted. The ship is there to help anyone who needs help. You hope you don’t need them. But it’s nice to know they’re there!
This trip has already been indescribably special. It’s hard to accurately describe what we’re seeing and experiencing because we aren’t just looking at all of it, we are immersed in it. As Adam from Rhode Island says, “We are at the bottom of the world!” Our crew of 11 is fun and funny and adventurous (duh!). Two of us are septegenarians, one is still in college. Six Americans, two Argentinians, an Aussie, a South African, and our French scientist, who’s running studies to see if whales have a sense of smell. As amazing as this day was, I’ll tell you tomorrow is even better. I can’t wait to see what else lies ahead.
Wendy
PS Did I mention the food is AMAZING? Apple pancakes for breakfast on this day. Subllime!
