Slow, nighttime cruising southwest along the topside of the Antarctic Peninsula brought us 125 nautical miles from Hope Bay to our morning’s destination of Charlotte Bay (red circles with white #4).
My travel buddies, Little Frog and Peggy, spent some time outside on whale, penguin, and iceberg watch, as this is an area that should be very active. Peggy has declared herself an “iceberg expert” after having made the most of her in-port time to study up.
Britannica Encyclopedia defines an iceberg as a “floating mass of freshwater ice that has broken from the seaward end of either a glacier or an ice shelf” (we won’t delve into Peggy’s distinctions of the types of glaciers, etc.). However, she does want you to know that to qualify as an iceberg the ice has to be at least 16.4 feet tall. Icebergs that are less than 3 feet tall and 15 feet across are called “growlers”, bigger than that up to the size of a small house are “bergy bits” or “baby bergs”, bigger are – well, bigger, and some are so big they are called behemouths. And just so you know, there is also sea ice that has formed from salt water. As the bergs and ice float they slowly melt, changing shapes and color.
Glaciers and ice shelves make up nearly 70% of the world’s fresh water. According to Peggy’s research, most Antarctic icebergs calve (break off) from “floating ice shelves and are a magnificent sight, forming huge, flat, ‘tabular’ structures”. An iceberg of this type would typically be between 700 and 1400 feet thick with only about 10% (think 7 to 10 story building) showing above the water, and they can weigh several billion tons.
The ice shelves float, but sit against the continental ice sheet that covers bedrock and defines 98% of the continent of Antarctica. Many icebergs are blue in color. Peggy says that the simplest explanation she can provide (she’s becoming a bit of an iceberg snob) is that air in the snow or newer ice on top reflects light, while the deeper ice (in the glacier from which it broke) has had air squeezed out by the weight of the ice and forms large, dense crystals. The old ice absorbs the long wavelengths of light and scatters the shorter blue, which we can then see.
Some are the whitest white, some glacial blue, some have dark lines of rock picked up as the glacier moved slowly forward toward the sea.
Gliding through icebergs is sort of like waiting for the next float at a cotton parade, or watching clouds drift by. Each is unique, and can be delightful, surprising, stunning, even awe-inspiring. Some tower over others with perfectly flat tops or sides, impressive in their sheer size and the appearance of engineered lines. Some are whimsical, revealing different aspects as they bob past, looking like a leaping dolphin from the front, and a spouting fountain from the back.
One had a seal resting from his narrow escape after an encounter with a killer whale, another, a penguin catching a ride.
Each day while in Antarctica, doors to the bow of the ship and several other decks that have open space at the front have been opened. There is a special group of Antarctic experts who have conducted research on the Continent who have provided presentations on various aspects, and one who has provided narration throughout portions of the scenic cruising. The picture below was taken of the TV in our cabin of the view from a bow camera that displays 24/7 on this channel. You can always see what is in front of the ship by tuning in. Here we were accepting items from another ship to deliver to a later stop.
The bow opened at 7:00 a.m. today, and we were on our balcony even before that. After a rough and rainy couple of days, it was terrific to see the sun coming through. There was still a cloud layer which hung low over the snow-covered mountains and ice fields, which made for incredibly interesting depths of field when trying to separate snow from ice from reflections from clouds.
Charlotte Bay was a prime location for possible whale sightings, and they did not disappoint!!! Scanning the area off the balcony, we saw a spout, then another and another and more!! As we watched, humpbacks appeared on the surface in a classic swim, revealing heads and torsos several times, then diving deep and “waving” their tails to reveal their distinctive flukes. The flukes are the two sides or lobes of the tail, and every individual whale can be identified by their flukes. We continued to watch with binoculars and Genny got these two pictures. (I have to resize pictures to make them small enough to post so don’t know what you’ll be able to see.)
A few minutes later we noticed bubbles in a circle on the water just below us. Humpbacks will gather and swim in circles below the surface to swirl the krill (small shrimplike humpback food) into a huge “bubble net” and then swim up through it with mouths open to consume tons of krill in a single pass. As we watched the circle, three humpbacks suddenly rose to the surface, blowing air from their blowholes and trumpeting like elephants!!! WOWSIE!!!! Some experts seem to think they are making feeding calls and “talking with their mouths full” when they do this. While our hearts jumped back into place, we watched them feed and dive below us as they moved farther away from the ship.
And if that wasn’t enough for this stop, we saw one last unusual occurrence when Orcas, aka, killer whales, appeared right alongside the humpbacks. Orcas eat larger marine life like seals and even penguins (which our expert called “Magnum bars” for an orca) but will on ocassion nibble the krill swirled up by the humpbacks, and today they did!
By the time we left Chrlotte Bay we were overflowing with the combination of good weather and amazing experiences. We still have another stop today – but I’ll leave that for the next episode.
For now, enjoy a few more icebergs and glorious scenery.
