We were all riding an incredible high from the previous day in Paradise Harbor, but the crew had us hyped up again for the prospects in today’s stop, Charlotte Bay. It is reputed to be an even prettier location. The weather decided that we were only going to be allowed glimpses though. A thick blanket of cloud and fog surrounded us, and then it started to snow.
While that might sound like a negative, it actually made for some powerful ambiance. Of course we were disappointed to not see the bay, but there is something appealing about experiencing such dramatically different conditions from day to day.
We cruised in the zodiacs, and once again it seemed like we could be in for a mediocre excursion. The snow got thicker and thicker, and severely limited our visibility. We found a few more seals, but most of us had another specific with in mind for this outing – whales. This is one of those classic spots where whales gather and provide stunning shots of diving tails with spectacular background scenery. We were a good 30 minutes in to this cruise and had seen no signs whatsoever.
Then one of our group said he heard something that sounded like a whale blow, and had a rough idea of which direction it came from. We slowly started snaking around the ice in that general direction. We had just spotted a couple of classic Humpback dorsal fins through the snow and fog, when suddenly, another Humpback shot its head up through the surface. Wow!
The whales were “bubble netting”, swimming in circles deep below the surface and slowly exhaling to create a ring of bubbles that drive the krill into a tight ball at the surface. Then one of them would get to swim up through the ball and take in a nice big mouthful. We had seen this from an airplane in Alaska a few years ago. Now we were witnessing it from the surface, and from a distance of about 100 yards.
The other zodiacs and kayaks quickly made their way over to get a view. The whales repeated the pattern several times, each time popping up in a slightly different spot. We probably watched them for 20 minutes or so before we had to get back to the ship. No one wants to leave a scene like that behind, but we were all thrilled to have seen it at all.
The snow was still falling, and it was starting to accumulate inside the zodiacs. Naturally, this led to an inter-boat snowball fight while we were waiting to get back on the ship. The guides got involved too. Everyone was having a great time.
What we didn’t know at that point was that this would be our final excursion of the trip. We were scheduled to make one more landing at a Chinstrap colony on one of the islands on our way north, but when we got there, the winds had picked up and stirred up the swells too much to allow the zodiacs in the water. The ship turned back to see and started making its way to sea.
It made for an abrupt ending, and it was awfully tough to take. We hadn’t yet seen Chinstraps, and we were definitely looking forward to seeing our third penguin species. It also felt like we missed an opportunity to soak in the “last” trip. Over time, we of course came to accept that we had a truly special final outing, but none of us felt like we’d had too much of a good thing.
We passed the next few days going to presentations on some of the history of Antarctic exploration, the impacts of climate change, and the biology of the wildlife we had just seen. The crew also put together a charity auction. We bid on a bunch of items, and were able to walk away with three big wins.
We one an autographed photographic print taken by one of the coaches in our group, as well as a patch from the Vernadsky science base that we had seen back on Winter Island. This was a personal donation from the expedition historian, Paul, who was formerly a commando in the British military and had personally led Antarctic expeditions under conditions that left us in awe.
The coolest prize though was the right to adopt one of the two new Humpback whales that had been identified on this cruise. An organization called Happy Whale maintains a database of Humpback whale tails. The tails are unique, like fingerprints. When people take pictures, they send them in to Happy Whale and they are able to track individual whale’s history, as well as identify new whales. We get to name this whale, and any time in the future someone takes a photo of it (and submits it to Happy Whale), we’ll be notified of “our” whale’s whereabouts. Pretty cool!
After a couple of days of cruising, we were back in Ushuaia. We had several hours to kill before our flight, so we explored the town. We walked the streets just taking it in. We stopped in a couple of tourist shops for the requisite souvenirs, and took in the Museo del Fin del Mundo (Museum of the End of the World) for some history of Ushuaia and the Tierra del Fuego.
Finally, we had no choice but to admit the trip was over. We headed to the airport to begin our 24 hour trip back home. The flights passed uneventfully. We made it home exhausted, but happy. We had planned this trip for nearly two years. We had built it up in our minds to the point where it seemed impossible to live up to our expectations, and still, it blew those expectations out of the water. That’s all for now. It’s time to get busy planning the next adventure…
