12th March – The Antarctic Continent and “Whalemina” Bay

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Wednesday 12 March 2014

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PortalPoint_P10281SHWhat a fantastic view to wake up to: the spectacular mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula! The day started very early for us with the mammal and bird surveys before the main activities of the day.
The ship anchored at Portal Point in Charlotte’s Bay, and we all headed out in the zodiacs. Almost immediately, we were treated to some up-close views of the majestic humpback whale. It was a spectacular scene seeing these magnificent creatures in the flesh in amongst the spectacular backdrop of icebergs and glaciers. Those on the “science zodiac” made their CTD and secchi disk recordings before heading over to the landing point to swap with the passengers already there. Here we sat foot onto the Antarctic continent proper! The deep snow meant that many people had their first experience of walking with snow shoes (these looked like plastic tennis racquets strapped to their feet). After a stomp around the snow-covered hill everyone was called back to the landing point, and told to quickly get ready for boarding the boats to get back to the ship. Somewhat perplexed, we obeyed. However, it quickly became clear why. During our 15 minutes on land, the wi nd had picked up from 15 knots to 35 knots (almost 70 km/h!), and we all promptly got a good saltwater soaking on the trip back. Shivering and dripping wet, everyone changed into their very-much-appreciated warm and dry clothes, and headed up to the observation lounge to warm up over a cup of coffee. All part of the Antarctic experience!

After another fantastic lunch (which included chips!), we arrived at Foyn Harbour, Enterprise Island and Wilhelmina Bay. It didn’t take us long to notice that there were quite a few humpback whales around – it was like Piccadilly Circus. Captain Alexey jokingly renamed Wilhelmina to Whalemina Bay. The plan was to loiter in the area for a while to see if the weather would stabilise, and in the meantime enjoy the incredible scenery. We were treated to a group of three humpback whales (a mother, calf and possibly a male escort?) resting calmy in the water right in front of the boat. The entire ship seemed to be out on deck braving the cold to take advantage of this brilliant opportunity to see these animals, completely oblivious it seemed to our presence. Little did we know, it would get even better.

We were given the all clear to get in the zodiacs to explore the more sheltered bays. Immediately, we were right next to even more humpback whales. As well as the usual recordings, some of us on the science boat also lowered a hydrophone (i.e. an underwater microphone) into the water to see if we could pick up any of the whales’ sounds. That humpback whales sing on the feeding grounds in the Antarctic is a very recent scientific find, so we were keen to find out if we could hear these eerie songs. We then made our way to the wreck of the Governøren, a whaling factory ship from the 1920s that was beached here by its crew after the ship had caught fire (everyone survived). It was odd, seeing the old, rusty hull and wooden decking sticking half out of the water. The whole experience from this cruise quickly became everyone’s favourite moment of the trip so far. And to cap things off, the sun made a fleeting appearance through the clouds.

Once back on the ship, the hydrophone recordings were loaded, and we were thrilled to actually have recorded humpback whale song. We quickly decided that we needed to talk about this in the daily Recap session for the whole ship. Abi and Jeanne then got to present this novel find and some background information on humpback whale song to all passengers during the evening’s recap and briefing session. As we sailed away, we could see humpback whales almost everywhere we looked. Everyone was exhausted from what had been an incredible day, and with the weather hopefully clearing up a bit, we were looking forwards to another incredible day in Antarctica.

(Abi, MRes student)

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