Cruising the White Continent and PENGUINS

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It was very difficult for Denny and I to check out of the ByB Nahuel and wait peacefully to board the Clipper Adventurer! We were truly excited to begin this journey to the Antarctic! At 4 PM we could board and at 6 PM we would embark.

The ship is beautiful. According to the sheet they distributed, the Clipper Adventurer was originally launched as the Alla Tarasova, named for a famous Russian actress. She was built in 1975 in Yugoslavia for a Russian shipping firm. Her port was in Murmansk until 1997 when the Clipper Cruise Line bought her. She has an ice-strengthened hull. After purchasing her, the Clipper Line had her completely refurbished in a Danish shipyard. Denny was glad to read that she had “state-of-the-art fin stabilizers” added in 1998. For the last 10 years she has been carrying 110 passengers, a Filipino crew of 55, and a cruising staff of 10+ on “luxury adventure tours.” Many of the passengers seem to be repeat Clipper Line customers on the Adventurer or the Odyssey. Unfortunately, it has been sold or leased tK and this is its final voyage as a Clipper ship.

The cabins aboard are spatious and comfortable. Each has twin beds on the floor (no bunk beds) and at least a porthole. Steve, the chef, and Carlene, the hotel manager, run a terrific food and guest service. The Filipino staff members are fun, well trained and cheerful servers. The meals are all gourmet (what a rack of lamb!) and delicious. I can’t say enough about the soups (pumpkin, carrot ginger, and tortilla all the way through turkey noodle)! The pies and pastries, or daily “special desserts” (molten chocolate cake, bread pudding with whiskey sauce, antarctic ice torte, peanut butter chocolate satin pie, etc.) plus the “Clipper Bar treats” later in the evening (Belgian white chocolate rice krispie treats, for example) are unbelieveable! There is also a homemade special ice cream (carmel, pistachio and oreo to name a few) plus a different sorbet each day! We will need every step of the following two months of hiking to take off the pounds we are putting on during these twelve days!

One particularly bright, sunny and warm (30?) day the chef prepared a BBQ for us out on the back deck. The hamburgers, hotdogs and sausages with all the fixings and trimmings tasted a whole lot better than they sound when you were eating them while sailing past ice bergs and watching petrels! The snow covered peaks and glaciers were always beautiful. This scenery can’t be beat!

The excursion staff have a dual role: giving illustrated lectures on a variety of topics (biology, ornithology, geology, history, even politics, etc.) and driving the zodiacs. Zodiaks...WOW!  It takes just one trip to get used to loading onto, riding in and unloading from them.  They really are relatively stable and safe!  We always got off the boat twice a day, often three times and one day, four times! (The down side of this though is the continuous dressing and undressing, major cold weather gear and rubber boots)! One could simply take the cruise and be reasonably content – as people do on the huge cruise ships --watching the scenery and the ice bergs and the seals on the icebergs and the penguins on the shore and ice bergs, the whales and the birds, etc., but the excursions (to be described soon) are truly remarkable! And there is “nightlife” too – including movies with popcorn)! We’re tired! I can’t possibly share it all, so I will try to hit the highlights!

The only big fear around here is that in order to visit the Antarctic one must cross the dreaded Drake Passage TWICE. They warn you in the literature and the welcome aboard speech that no matter what your experience is on the crossings, it will be worth the trip. Hmmmm….

PENGUINS Oh my! Have we seen the penguins! Hundreds of thousands of Magellanic, Adelie, Gentoo, Rockhopper, Chinstrap and even a few Macaroni. Unfortunately the King and Emperor ones live further south.

At this time of the summer the adults are alternating – one stays at the nest feeding their chicks and the other goes out to feed, then they exchange places. The chicks are quite big now, perhaps two-thirds the size of the adults and VERY demanding! When an adult comes returns to the Adelie colonies many chicks will chase after it. The adult runs until all but its own chick tires and gives up. Then the chick gets fed. Pretty comical to watch except when there is a thin chick whose parent may have been taken by a seal and is looking for food from any adult, only to be turned away rather brutally. Also, the skuas, a predatory bird, try to isolate a chick and then kill and eat it. If the chick runs into the open rather than into the heart of the crèche (a clustering where the older chicks gather together for warmth and safety while waiting for their parents’ return), it is doomed. We saw this all too often…sad to see, but another example of the food chain and survival of the fittest – the skuas do seem to select the least healthy, least active chicks. Colonies of penguins near close food supplies seem more peaceful with adults always on guard to fend off the skuas.

The best way to learn about penguins is to sit on the ground or on a rock, always at least 15 feet away from them and to let them come to you. They have not been told the 15 foot rule, are very curious and soon come to check you out. Or a running adult comes by and stops to feed its chick. Or two adults return at the same time and go through their welcoming ritual. This is typically a raucous squawking followed by breast bumping and then a neck dance of sorts and more squawks. Each type has a little different pattern to their behavior and it takes very little time to be able to tell them apart either by behavior or color patterns.

Denny and I both have come to prefer the regal Gentoos with their orange beaks and white eye stripes. However the Macaronis we saw were very beautiful with their golden head feathers and who can resist the Chinstraps?

The Rockhoppers do have a funny way of following one another down a long and sometimes difficult route to the sea and then waiting for the perfect entry moment. I could never tell what that was – I know that there always could be a leopard seal lurking down there waiting for them to drop into the sea, but what makes them decide “now!” They’ll waddle up close only to back away and then waddle up in a slightly different place. Then suddenly they’ll all go! Is it just that one seizes the moment and the rest follow? It is much the same with penguins along the shore – the up and back – and then a group dive in. The wonders of nature.

Coming next -- Sites & Adventures and then Antarctic Wildlife