Antarctica is a very quiet place...
We wake up this morning, surrounded by the ice shelf, and if we may think we have not moved at all during the night, with the natural ice shelf drift, we are actually 1.8km further north than yesterday. Yet, the ship is like lying on the ice and it looks it has not moved an inch. Outside it's full white, up to the horizon, with some nuances of gray, a monochrome painting. It's vast, it's silent, it's freezing, -6 degrees. 8am and we go out on a 2-hours hike with the naturalists. Note that there is also a large scientific team aboard the ship, which takes advantage of the journey to get some projects done. The ship is equipped with several high tech laboratories and state of art instruments for data collection. OK, today is full gear on to fight the cold !
We walk a bit more than 2.5 km away from the ship, and we can now barely see it in the distance. It's so silent, we only hear our footsteps in the snow. We spot a seal, lost alone in the middle of that continent. It's hard to comprehend how they can survive in such harsh environment. The scientists have spoken, we are stand it's 1 meter snow, 1.5 meters ice and about 1,000 meters of icy water.
Adelie Penguins
Although we woke up early, but the penguins were there first, and we can see their traces on the immaculate thin layer of fresh snow. On the picture below you can clearly see the change of marks between the ride on their belly, and then standing up to walk. The sun starts to break-up a bit and we get some blues tainting our monochromatic morning.
Emperor Penguin
Our second sight of an Emperor penguin this week, but much closer this time and I even got to get a shot together with an Adélie penguin. See the difference of size with the Adélie penguin. The size of the Emperor is about 1.2 meters. It is the biggest of the Penguins and it has no predator in Antarctica. In this region, there is no empereur Penguin colony, but only solitary individuals, so it is quite rare to spot one. And by the way "Adelie" came from the name of the wife of the French explorer Dumont d'Urville; so she has got herself a penguin name and a territory name : Terre Adelie, where the French scientific base is located.
Heading to Stonington Island
The sky got blue for a moment, and we sail north towards Stonington island. It is a small island, about 750m long and 250m wide but an important historical site, site of the British base, called Base-E. Like Base-W on Detaille Island, it's under the management of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, one of the organization I sponsor in Antarctica. It will be amazing to visit the base, which was active in the 1940s and remained occupied until 1975.
As we make our way thru the ice pack, we disturb a few Adelie Penguins; the sun is getting lower on the horizon (but it never gets dark in this season). There is no summer sunset in Antarctica.
The penguin video is amazing!!!