Astrolabe Island

“Glittering white, shining blue, raven black, in the light of the sun, the land looks like a fairy tale. Pinnacle after pinnacle, peak after peak – crevassed, wild as any land on our globe, it lies, unseen and untrodden.” – Roald Amundsen

“The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, like noises in a swound!” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

Second in size only to Southern Elephant Seals, Leopard Seals can reach over 4 meters long (13 feet) and weigh up to 450 kilos (almost 1,000 pounds)...are formidable hunters and rank alongside Orcas (“Killer Whales”) as Antarctica’s top predators.

After spending our time crossing the Southern Ocean undertaking a myriad of activities (stimulating lectures & sleeping through them, watching Hollywood blockbusters like Casino Royale – which I’ve now seen for at least the 10th time but still love, eating 4-course meals with dessert twice a day & getting no physical activity, and playing some wild rounds of euchre where original gangsta Matt G & I consistently put the smack down on Bobby J & Aly…oh yeah, bring the noise baby! Bobby J and I almost came to blows at one point when his hyper-competitiveness got the better of him and he started talkin’ smack, but I remained calm and clear-headed of course and talked him down off the ledge), we finally arrived to Antarctica.

As part of our passage, we (the expedition staff really, they didn’t consult me) had contemplated a sail-by of the South Orkney Islands and a possible landing at Elephant Island (where Shackleton’s men waited out his epic journey to South Georgia in the James Caird). Iceberg traffic jams prevented us from even getting near the Orkneys and low visibility, high winds and big swells blocked Elephant Island.  Like I’ve mentioned in this blog before, Mother Nature is inexorable and you just have to wait her out or make other plans.

Our first landing in Antarctica (after a cancelled morning landing at Brown Bluff on the continent) was on the shores of Gourdin Island, a quirky place that is completely covered in reddish Gentoo Penguin shat. Sorry folks, but I couldn’t muster up the motivation to pull out the camera and snap some shatty fotos (I know you’re so disappointed). So enough of that…

We eventually moved on to Astrolabe Island, a very cool rocky outcrop in the Bransfield Strait off the Antarctic Peninsula that is home to wild iceberg formations, Gentoo, Adelie  & Chinstrap Penguins, Weddell Seals and the bad boy of them all: the fearsome Leopard Seal.

Second in size only to Southern Elephant Seals, Leopard Seals can reach over 4 meters long (13 feet) and weigh up to 450 kilos (almost 1,000 pounds). With spotted coats, large reptilian heads, streamlined bodies, highly developed senses of smell and sight, unusually loose, but mightily powerful jaws that open up to a maximum 160-degree angle, and with sharp front teeth to tear flesh, Leopards are formidable hunters and rank alongside Orcas (“Killer Whales”) as Antarctica’s top predators.

Using powerful fore-flippers, Leopards are able to propel themselves forward at speeds reaching 25mph (40kph). This speed enables them to feed on a varied diet of food sources as diverse as Krill, Penguins (including Kings & Emperors) and other seals (they prefer Crabeater Seals and Fur Seals, but will also target juvenile Weddell, Ross and Southern Elephant Seals). Their feeding behavior is displayed most dramatically when feeding on penguins; the Leopards thrash the captured bird about on the surface of the water until the skin peels away, and then feast on the remaining carcass. Yummy!

Leopard Seals have the eerie and fearless curiosity of another well-known predator: Great-White Sharks.  While I’m not sure how many realistic parallels can be drawn between the two, I definitely felt an elevated heart rate and sense of excitement at the sight of the Leopards, in a way similar to how I feel when I think about Great Whites…and for good reason.

In July 2003, a Leopard Seal mauled a 28 year old, British marine biologist snorkeling near the Antarctic Peninsula, resulting in 45 bite marks and bruises concentrated mostly around her head, as well as her death. The seal in question dragged her underwater for 6 minutes and down to depths up to 70 meters (according to her retrieved dive computer), thereby drowning her. Despite resuscitation attempts by her colleagues, she could not be revived. An eyewitness account provided to a Coroner’s Court investigating the cause of death described the Leopard’s head area as larger than the victim’s entire head and upper torso.

The attack was the first recorded human fatality due to a Leopard Seal. However, scientists have documented numerous other incidents of aggressive behavior toward humans, including a peculiar predilection of the Leopards to attack the black, torpedo-shaped pontoons of rigid inflatable boats such as the very Zodiacs we were circling these waters in…Yikes!  I hope our boats had reinforced guards to prevent puncturing, but I didn’t think to ask the question while in the moment…I was too hypnotized.

The first Leopards we saw were bobbing among swells just off a rocky shore where hundreds of Adelie & Chinstrap penguins were gathered. Lunchtime?  We caught much better and closer up glimpses of a couple Leopard Seals in a more protected bay filled with “bergy bits” reflecting the ethereal blue that Antarctic bergs are renowned for. Two Leopards were lounging on some ice flows while another 2 or 3 were swimming under our Zodiacs, undertaking their own sinister, and obviously malintentioned investigations.  Entranced, we collectively watched their capricious movements and explorations with a combination of fear and awe. I snapped probably 30 photos trying to get some perfect action shots of the Leopards, but only 2 or 3 even turned out decent and I didn’t get any good underwater shots even though they consistently swam directly beneath us only a foot or two below the surface. Still, very amazing watching them shiftily snake through the water.

The other super cool thing about Astrolabe Island are the icebergs, and I got some great photo shots of the bluest, blues emanating as reflections off the oldest, densest, most oxygen-deprived areas of the ice. While I have been somewhat disappointed after 4 days of perfect sunny weather in South Georgia, the overcast skies turned out to be advantageous, as the lack of sun brought out the blue hues of the bergs and glaciers. Still, I do miss the warm rays of the sunshine.

I happened to snap the Cybershot at just the right moment on a particular photo to catch a surreal shot, a wave breaking into the cavity of an overhanging iceberg, creating the visual illusion of a drop-off beyond the crest of the wave and into an abyss of blue. After returning to Ushuaia, my brothers and I spent some time on Skype discussing the photo…I didn’t realize when I took the pic how cool it looked. The shot timing wasn’t deliberate, I wasn’t trying to capture that image, but sometimes shots just turn out unintentionally good (see “Astrolabe Island 14 - Iceberg”, the cover pic, in the photoset below), which is very nice as many more times my shots turn out unintentionally bad.

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/timothyshoup/sets/72157603999745615/

Tomorrow we head over to Neko Harbour where I will endeavor to brave the chilly waters of Antarctica (by swimming) in some insane, ridiculous attempt to prove something or other, but I’m not sure what that might be…