POLAR ADVENTURES
I've been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to both the Arctic in 2016 and the Antarctic in 2024. Below are the posts relating to these holidays.
YANKEE HARBOUR On our final day in the Antarctic, we knew the morning landing was likely to be our last wildlife spot. Having already seen so much wonderful wildlife and taken thousands of photos, we went ashore with the aim of relaxing, taking our time and just enjoying the walk and whatever we might see. On the one hand, I felt as though there couldn't be anything more we hadn't already seen, but, I also knew there were bound to be some surprises too. Once more, we caught the last zodiac leaving the ship. We were welcomed onto land by the presence of this adult Weddell Seal. I just love those big dark eyes.
HEADING TO THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA We had an early morning wake up call at about 5am to say we were close to the Antarctic Peninsula and had reached the pack ice. Despite the early hour, there was a lot of excitment on board and the cold air certainly woke me up. All around us were icebergs and brash ice and slowly the ship surged forwards. There were two Cormorants sitting on top of a large iceberg. They looked tiny in comparison.
PENGUIN ISLAND We woke up to find it snowing heavily for the first time on our journey so far and I was thrilled. I love the snow! It seemed so fitting to be seeing the penguins in these cold conditions. We managed to get ashore in one of the first few zodiacs and stayed virtually until the last one, so we made the most of our landing and really enjoyed ourselves observing the penguins on the island and other wildlife. Sadly, there weren't any Adélie Penguin colonies to be found, but we saw a few Gentoo Penguins walking around.
ONCE MORE AT SEA Leaving South Georgia behind us, we ventured further south towards the frozen continent of Antarctica. It took us three days. Since we were the first voyage of the season, we had no idea what lay ahead. Would we see any Adélie Penguins? How much of the ice would have retreated? Would we actually be able to walk on the Antarctic Peninsula, which was where we were ultimately heading? Everything had been so good already, I didn't have high expectations. I was just open to whatever we would experience and enjoying it all. Over the course of the three days we were at sea, we weren't able to be out on deck that often as the conditions weren't great. I certainly didn't take many photos. On our first day, though, I was pleased to take a few nice ones of a Blue Petrel flying close to the ship.
GOLD HARBOUR The Plancius sailed down to the southern part of the island for our final day in South Georgia. It was yet another jam packed day and we had an early wake up call so we could fit everything in! First on the agenda was a landing at Gold Harbour. Even though we were seeing more of the same species we'd already seen, it turned out to be a fabulous place. In fact, it was probably one of my favourite landings. It's a compact beach filled to the brim with wildlife. I felt so close to it all, and unlike the day before, we were at ground level with most of it. This felt much more special. As was so often the case with our landings, the first wildlife we came across were the Elephant Seals on the beach. There were more youngsters stealing my attention, with those gorgeous big black eyes.
At some ungodly hour during the night, the anchor was raised and we left Grytviken. Sleeping in one of the front cabins in the aft of the ship, as we were, meant the noise of the anchor movement, either up or down, was extremely loud and it woke us both up. The ship sailed towards St Andrews Bay whilst most of us on board were still sleeping. There was quite a bit of swell along the way and the chair in our cabin fell over. For the most part though, things didn't slide around or fall off the shelves, because the cabin was so well designed. There were either non slip mats on the shelves or a lip at the edge, and sometimes both. In fact, we were impressed with all these small little touches, especially the raised sides to our beds so we couldn't fall out when asleep. The temperature in the morning was only 1°C. There was no wind, but unfortunately, the swell was too high for a landing in St Andrews Bay. We were gutted. This was not the news we wanted to wake up to. We had to switch to Plan B. This meant swapping our day around and heading back north to Godthul, which was actually only just around the corner (relatively speaking) from where we'd been the day before in Grytviken. We just had to hope and pray the swell would be less later on when we returned to St Andrews Bay. GODTHUL On our way to Godthul, we were happily distracted when we spotted some Orcas (Killer Whales). There seemed to be two swimming all over the place, clearly feeding. It was a mother and calf. It was virtually impossible to predict where they were going to emerge. One time, one appeared so close to the boat, but it was gone by the time I took a photo. Of the many times they swiftly but gently glided through the water at the surface, I was only able to get one semi-decent photo. At least there's a Cape Petrel and two Giant Petrels to help provide some scale.
