B2’s and breaching
Day 11 – 17th January – written by Celia with edits by Mike
We started this morning at 7am traveling through the picturesque Lemaire Channel. The towering peaks of Booth Island to our left were shrouded in clouds. The corniced ridges of the continent to our right looked equally mysterious. The narrow passage of the Lemaire Channel was still very scenic and made even better by a few humpback whales that made an appearance and lifted the observers’ mood in the cold conditions. It got even windier as we exited the Lemaire Channel, and we relocated to the more sheltered deck 6 instead of the more exposed viewing platform on deck 7.
About 45 minutes into my shift, we got reports of orca (killer whales) from the crew. We kept our eyes peeled and sure enough we saw about 4 killer whales just in front of us. As you would expect everyone lost their minds as orca were very high up on everyone’s ‘must see list’. There were two females, one male and a calf. Despite the weather we all went up to the top deck, after logging the sighting, for a better look. Whist the other whales carried on their way the bull of the pod came over to the ship for a quick bow ride. Orca are just big dolphins after all. It was over in a few minutes, but we were all very happy and buzzed for the rest of the day.
For birds we got great views of giant petrels, Wilson’s storm petrels, the beautiful snow petrels and southern fulmars. The giants petrels with a wingspan up to 210 cm looked impressive as they flew right over the ship giving us a great view of just how big they are.
Barely an hour later we spotted more orca! This pod was much larger around 15 individuals and were a mix of males and females and a wee calf. There was one bull which hung around the stern of the ship probably checking out this giant object in his home before rejoining the rest of his pod. The orca we saw were of the ecotype B2 or the Gerlache orcas. They fare known to eat penguins, fish and the occasional seal and are differentiated from the mammal-specialising B1s by their smaller size, fuzzy eye patch and larger groups. Not long after the second pod of orca we spotted a humpback whale which then gave us a spectacular show breaching over and over for about twenty times! All this excitement and it still wasn’t even 10am yet!
We had originally planned to visit a chinstrap penguin colony at Orne Harbour after lunch. Unfortunately fog rolled in, visibility became very poor and the landing was sadly cancelled. Because of the weather in the area the crew decided it would be best if we left the area and instead started travelling north to the Weddell Sea. Very few expedition ships travel to this area so it’s very exciting to be traveling there!
Our teams stayed on effort despite the poor conditions and spotted several humpback whales close to the ship. We finally stopped observation effort before dinner and had a quick briefing with Mike about the penguin behavioural observations we’ve already collected and will collect again hopefully tomorrow. We turned in for an early night to the gentle roll of the Bransfield Strait looking forward to awake in the Weddel Sea.