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Stop 7: Paradise Harbor, Antarctica |
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A very beautiful good morning, everyone!
Welcome to Neko Harbor! The Ortelius has taken us to a new location for new views and opportunities to explore the Antarctic Peninsula! It’s been windy out there, so my kayaking trip this morning got canceled. Instead, I am heading ashore to visit the Penguin Penthouse!
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Stepping off the Zodiac, I immediately liked this spot even more than the last one! For starters, the snow was so much cleaner! At Waterboat Point, all the snow was orange because of the penguin poop, but here at the Penguin Penthouse, the penguins had very tidily limited their pooping to narrow highways leading from the shore to their nests! A sleepy Weddell seal was snoozing in one of these highways, and it was causing the penguins all sorts of confusion!
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But even neater was that there was a pebbly shoreline here with really great icicles! That meant getting the chance to touch Antarctic dirt and roll Antarctic rocks between my fingers! No souvenirs, though! You’re not allowed to take anything home from Antarctica! You’re also not supposed to stay on the shore too long, because if a glacier calves nearby, it would send a tidal wave that would wash you right away into the frigid subpolar ocean!
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So I climbed up off the shore and kept hiking to the first level of the Penguin Penthouse. There’s another level even higher than this one, but I was too late to sign up for the snowshoe group that went there. Either way, the views up here were spectacular! No wonder the penguins invest so much time and energy to nest up here. It’s prime real estate!
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Speaking of penguins, I found two very familiar ones stuck in a snow drift: my friends, Penguin Jr. and Penguin III! I hauled them out and learned that after I had taken them on a tour of Los Angeles, they had gotten the travel bug and sailed down to Antarctica to find a mate for their father and to hunt down Ernest Shackleton! I’m not convinced that they will find Undead Shackleton, but there sure are plenty of options to pick their soon-to-be stepmom! I tried to help them make their decision, but it’s really hard for a beaver to know which lady penguins are better picks than others!
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It was really peaceful up here in the heights, but time in Antarctica always feels too brief! Before long, the Zodiacs were pulling back in to photobomb and take us back to the ship for lunch!
Though the snow was still lightly dusting, the wind calmed a whole bunch over lunch, which meant kayaking was back on the agenda! I was surprised that all the kayaks were made for two people, but it made sense, since it would be easier to keep track of everyone. I got paired with a fellow from China named Ho Ren, who took the front seat while I was put in charge of steering at the back!
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Midway through, the steering cable popped off the rudder, and I could not get Ho Ren to understand that we couldn’t keep barreling straight ahead at the icebergs because I couldn’t steer away! It’s one thing to bump into a little iceberg, but big icebergs are very unstable and can turn over, right on top of a kayaker! Communication is super important in dangerous situations, but we were just not connecting. Plus, he splashed my camera with sea water, which made me really mad! I grumbled the rest of the way back to the ship, which was a shame because the icebergs were really incredible and because we were in ANTARCTICA!
I calmed down over dinner because I was so excited for the next scheduled activity: camping! We met up for a briefing in the lecture room to learn how to assemble the sleeping bags. This was going to be open-air camping! Whoa!
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At about 9:00, a group of us took a Zodiac to a little island in Leith Cove with a navigation beacon on its summit, and hauled our equipment onto the snow. This island was surrounded by glaciers on all sides, so I was a little nervous about being woken up in the night by the thunderous clap of calving!
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But there was nothing to worry about! I dug out a very comfortable bed in the snow, packing in all the right back and neck supports. All the humans just had polar sleeping bags, but I set up an icy shelter, because without it, I could be totally buried by a light snowfall during the night!
The sun went away, but the night never got fully dark! By the time I went to sleep around 10:30, it was only dim. No stars, no aurora australis, no problem falling right into slumber!
Good twilight!
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