5 Dec 25 - Antarctica 25 - Worth Getting Up Early

I had set my alarm for another early start at 04:30. It was well after first light, but having seen an Emperor Penguin, I had allowed myself a lie-in. After a quick cuppa tea, I headed out to find I was the first passenger on the top deck. We were in an area of open water which was just the other side of Rosamel Island. This wasn't surprising given the amount of ice in the Antarctic Sound and the Northern Weddell Sea.

Rosamel Island looked gorgeous in the early morning light

We were in a two mile long area of open water: We were slow cruising around the area

About 05:30, I spotted an Emperor Penguin in the open water. It wasn't close, but it was clearly an Emperor Penguin. Frustratingly, it dived after about forty-five seconds and I failed to relocate it again. It's a shame there weren't others who had got up early, as a few extra pairs of eyes might have helped refind it. Still it was great to have found my own Emperor Penguin.

There were some serious icebergs around

The early morning light provided some atmospheric photos as we moved around the open water

About an hour after seeing the Emperor Penguin, I spotted a pod of four Orca hunting along the edge of the pack ice. They weren't close, but they were surfacing fairly regularly. I was still the only passenger on the top deck, but a small group of Chinese passengers were on the next deck below mine. Fortunately, one spoke reasonable English and he was able to tell his fellow travellers what I had seen. They were pleased to see the Orca. The Orca disappeared after about ten minutes. I suspected they had dived under the ice, before coming up in the edge of the next area of open water.

Orca Type B (Large): I already knew they were Orca based upon my initial views through the bins. On this photo it would have been a bit harder to identify. However, the options are limited to Orca or an Antarctic Minke Whale, once you have ruled out one of the larger Whales. It's unlikely the seas adjacent to Antarctica will be deep enough for a Beaked Whale and there are no Dolphin species around the Antarctic Peninsula

Orca Type B (Large): There is no doubt about the identification when the large male dorsal fin appeared

Orca Type B (Large): This individual appears to have a large white horizontal patch at the front of the body which would indicate it's likely to be a Type B (Large) Orca

The Orca Type B (Large) are also known as Pack Ice Orca. They are large compared to some of the other Orca Ecotypes. Their eye patch is very large and oriented parallel to the body axis. They are more grey-and-white in colouration with a darker grey dorsal cape and pale grey sides. However, after some time in Antarctic waters, they often develop a dirty yellowish appearance caused by a coating of diatoms. It is believed that they undertake rapid, round trip migrations to the tropics, but they spends most of the year in Antarctic waters. The diatoms die off in the warmer waters and the Orca lose their yellowish colouration. They can work as a team to knock Seals off small ice floes, with Weddell Seals being their preferred food. However, they are capable of catching the larger and more powerful Leopard Seals, but there is a higher risk that a Leopard Seal could inflict damage to them before they killed it.

Orca Type B (Large): Finding an Orca pod has been something on my To Do list for a few years, so that was good to have achieved it. I just need to find some in the UK or European waters now

It had been an excellent start to the morning and well worth the early alarm. I went to celebrate when the call to breakfast finally came.

Orca Type B (Large): Soon after this last photo they disappeared

After breakfast, the ship started to push its way through the leads, to see if we could find a way further South. We managed to get a few miles further South, but not enough that would give us any realistic chance of getting close to Snow Hill Island. As we had good visibility and we were unable to get much further South due to the amount of ice, the helicopter pilots, Pippa and the Captain decided that about ten in the morning, the ship would start scenic helicopter flights. The plan for the scenic flights was slightly different to the plan had we been able to visit the Emperor Penguin colony. We would take only twelve passengers in a flight of the three helicopters, which would allow everybody to have a window seat for the twenty minute flight. We had been divided into groups and all the four berth cabin passengers were in the final group to fly. I didn't mind being in the last group, as I wanted to keep looking given the ship hadn't moved more than a few miles from where I had seen the Emperor Penguin and the Orcas. It would have been a different feeling had it been a flight to the Emperor Penguin colony.

We had to push through these patches of broken ice to get to the next area of open water

As we moved around the open water, there was plenty of ice to scan. There was a reasonable selection of interesting subjects to photograph.

An impressive iceberg

Southern Giant Petrel: To identify the two Giant Petrels from each other, you have to see if the bill tip is pastel green or pastel red, which at a distant looks like a pale bill tip or dark tip in Northern Giant Petrel

Southern Giant Petrel: There is clearly no confusion over the identify of this individual

Southern Giant Petrel: It's not often I get photos of this species that are this good

Southern Giant Petrel: About one percent of the Southern Giant Petrels are immediately recognised without having to check the bill tip colouration, as they are the white morph. Northern Giant Petrels do not have a corresponding white morph

Snow Petrel was one of the Seabirds I was most keen to see on my previous Antarctica trip. We saw the first in the Drygalski Fjord in South Georgia and then a few most days in the Drake Passage and Antarctica on my first visit. Similarly, we saw a few as we crossed the Drake Passage and in the Antarctic Sound. But they are a hard species to get a good photo, as I've never seen them very close to the ship.

Snow Petrel: They are a gorgeous Seabird

Snow Petrel: This is the nominate nivea subspecies which breeds on the Antarctic Peninsula & Antarctic islands (except in the Ross Sea region), as well as, South Georgia & Bouvet Island

Snow Petrel: The other subspecies occurs in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica

Snow Petrel: Not as close, but better lit

Snow Petrel

Snow Petrel

Snow Petrel: A final overhead photo

Weddell Seal: I saw three Weddell Seals during the day

Weddell Seal: A different individual

Weddell Seal: Another view of the same individual

Unfortunately, the ship had only managed to fly about a third of the flights, before low cloud grounded flying at lunchtime. There was another window in the afternoon, when the visibility improved to allow more flights to depart, before finally more low cloud grounded the flights for the rest of the day. Personally, it wasn't a big problem for me that I didn't get called for my flight, as I didn't think that we would get an ice-free window to allow us to head South towards Snow Hill Island. Therefore, I reckoned there would be plenty of time on the following day for the remaining scenic flights to leave.

One of the helicopters heading off for the next scenic flight

It had been a good day, even if we hadn't managed to get any significantly further South during the day. However, with the amount of pack ice between us and Snow Hill Island, we really needed the sea currents and wind to move a lot of the drifting ice to give us a chance to getting clear water to our South. There was one more good Bird seen during the day and I've reserved that for the next Blog Post.

4 Dec 25 - Antarctica 25 - Exploring The Antarctic Sound

I woke early to find we were in the Antarctic Sound, surrounded by lots of ice floes. I spent a lot of time checking all the Penguin parties. There were lots of Adelie Penguins, but there wasn't any Emperor Penguins with them.

There was a lot of drifting ice in the Antarctic Sound: This didn't change during our time around the Antarctic Peninsula

The visibility wasn't great at times during the morning

While there were a number of passengers who were keen to see Birds and Cetaceans, there were only two Birders on board: myself and American Birder, Nick. Generally, Nick preferred to be outside on the deck below the bridge or sometimes near the bows, when that was possible. It was Nick's first visit to Antarctica and understandably he was keen to get good photos from the outer decks. If it had been my first visit, I would probably have been on similar decks. However, as this was my second visit to Antarctica, my strategy was to stay in the bridge as it was the highest and best viewpoint to look for Cetaceans or Emperor Penguins while we were moving. As a pleasant bonus, it was warmer, which helped when I was watching for hours at a time. I could get onto one of the bridge wings quickly, but there was only a fifty-fifty chance that the open bridge door was on the correct side of the ship as the latest sighting. If not, I had a long walk back down to deck 6 to get outside and onto the correct side of the ship. So, while I had a better view, I was limited to photographing sightings through the bridge window. That wasn't ideal, but the main objectives of this trip was to look for Emperor Penguins and hopefully see some Antarctic Petrels well, rather than Bird photography.

American Birder Nick (right) was the only other Birder on the expedition

We anchored up in the morning to allow the passengers to have a zodiac ride in the ice around Kinnes Cove, which has a twenty-five thousand pair colony of Adelie Penguins. I decided to stay on board as I hoped I would have a better viewpoint for seeing an Emperor Penguin. It was a gamble, as if the zodiacs had found an Emperor Penguin, I would have been one of the few passengers to have not seen it. In the end, no Emperor Penguins were seen. Once the zodiacs were back on board it was time for lunch, while the ship slowly moved East along the Antarctic Sound.

Adelie Penguin: Sometimes I found groups of fifty or more Adelie Penguins at the edge of the ice, but more typically it was just a few Adelie Penguins on an ice floe

Gentoo Penguin: I saw around fifty Gentoo Penguins compared to about five hundred Adelie Penguins during the day

Black-browed Albatross

Southern Giant Petrel

Cape Petrel

Snow Petrel: This is the nominate nivea subspecies which breeds on the Antarctic Peninsula & Antarctic islands (except in the Ross Sea region), as well as, South Georgia & Bouvet Island

Snow Petrel: They are incredibly well-camouflaged for life in the Antarctic

Wilson's Storm-petrel: This is the exasperatus subspecies which breeds on the South Shetland Islands, South Sandwich Islands & adjacent Antarctic coast

Wilson's Storm-petrel

Wilson's Storm-petrel

Weddell Seal: This was one of two Weddell Seals I saw during the morning

Crabeater Seal: I saw a distant Crabeater Seal which looked alive, but too far for a photograph. This second individual was sadly as healthy as the average montypythoni subspecies of Norwegian Blue Parrot

One of the highlights of the morning was seeing a couple of Antarctic Petrels belt past the ship at one point, but they were too quick for any photos and very quickly they were gone. Still, it was good to one properly. After I got back from my first visit to Antarctica, I found a few photos of the only one that raced past a giant iceberg I was photographing, which none of us saw at the time.

Rosamel Island: This small island lies in the channel between Andersson Island and Dundee Island

We were slowly making our way through the ice floes. The ship could only travel at a bit over two knots in these conditions, as the bridge crew weaved through the ice gaps to pushed through lighter ice floes. It was like being in a maze where you could see the way ahead and be able to push through some gaps in the hedges, but where other routes were totally impenetrable. Every now and then we would break through into areas of open water that was a mile or two in length. The open water looked good for finding an Orca pod, but we didn't see any during the day. However, we were aware they were in the area, as we had seen a larger distant cruise ship and the expedition staff confirmed that ship had seen them earlier in the morning. It was just a case of looking and I was hopefully we would connect over the next few days.

Every now and then, we would see larger areas of open water

There were also some seriously large icebergs

By mid-afternoon, we were approaching the Argentinian Petrel base on Dundee Island. There was a large expanse of sea ice extending out from Dundee Island. The crew decided to gentle ram into this solid ice sheet until the ship came to a halt. One of the expedition team, Sam, had worked in Antarctica for an extended contract advising the base on safe travel on the ice. Sam and some of the expedition team disembarked onto the ice to check it out and after about a half hour, we had an announcement that those who wanted to, could get off the ship. There was a route across the ice sheet that had been marked out for about a kilometre for people to walk. I decided that my best option was to get the scope and tripod and start scanning the sea floes and open water for Orca and Emperor Penguins from the top deck.

A mountain on Dundee island near to the Petrel base

After we had rammed into the pack ice: The Petrel base was on the island in the distance

The waving line of those who wanted to have a walk on the ice

The distant Argentinian Petrel base

Cape Petrel

Adelie Penguin: This lone Adelie Penguin was hanging out close to the ship

Eventually, the Adelie Penguin found some colourful admirers: Shan (left) and Gary (right) were from the Expedition staff team. Shan was translating the briefings and talks for the twenty-five or so Chinese passengers

At the pre-dinner briefing, Pippa said there was still a large amount of solid ice floes in the fifty miles between the ship and Snow Hill Island. They were hoping that the sea and wind conditions might move those ice floes further East into the Weddell Sea, but for now there wasn't a lot of chance in us getting close enough to be able to use the helicopters to reach the Snow Hill Emperor Penguin colony. In addition to getting close to Snow Hill Island, we also needed a realistic long window when we could all land on the island and more importantly get off safely again. Each passenger would have needed two to three hours to allow them to walk a couple of kilometres to the colony and back again and obviously have a reasonable amount of time at the colony. To do this we would need to have a day long window of good weather and be fairly close to the colony. Given the amount of ice floes, Pippa said the plan was the ship would stay at the edge of the pack ice overnight and see if the winds turned in our favour. It still seemed unlikely that we would get close to Snow Hill Island.

Pippa explaining the complexities about getting to Snow Hill: Pippa said that there would be a set of scenic flights around the Northern Weddell Sea during the following day. We were divided into groups and all the four berth cabin passengers were in the final group to fly. However, we would be the first passengers for the second set of scenic flights

Having drawn a blank in finding an Emperor Penguin or an Orca pod while the other passengers were walking on the ice, I didn't hurry to get back on the top deck after dinner. But I decided to give it another go on the top deck. I found Nick and his partner, Caroline had beaten me to the deck and Nick was staring intently through his scope. A few minutes earlier they had found the first Emperor Penguin standing on distant ice. Some of the Expedition staff had also seen it from the bridge, but they hadn't announced this news to the passengers yet. Nick quickly got me onto the right bit of ice, but there was a small ridge of ice next to where he had seen it and it had either walked behind that ridge or popped back into the water. After a few worrying minutes, it reappeared from behind the ice ridge. It was the best part of a half mile away. It needed the scope on a high magnification to get a decent view, but it was great to see my first Emperor Penguin. At that point, one of my cabin mates, Rob, appeared and I lent him my scope to have a look. A couple of minutes later when I went to have another look, the Emperor Penguin had disappeared again. Sadly, it didn't reappear.

Rosamel Island dominated the open water in this part of the Antarctic Sound

Pippa and the Captain decided to depart from the ice sheet and see if we could get closer. An announcement was finally made to tell the passengers about the Emperor Penguin, but it was already too late as it had disappeared. Having reversed back out of the ice, I was expecting we would sail the half mile or so to where we had seen the Emperor Penguin and to hang around that area. I was surprised and disappointed to find that we didn't stop and we kept moving towards the Northern end of the Weddell Sea. That could have been a costly mistake for most of the passengers.

A final close up view of Rosamel Island

Our route around the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula: Copied from the Oceanwide Expeditions trip report. Snow Hill Island can be seen in the bottom right hand corner of the map (just above the labels box)

A close up of the Antarctic Sound and Northern Weddell Sea: Point 5 is the Kinnes Cove zodiac trip and point 6 is the Petrel base. We didn't manage to get much further South in the next few days

I said on deck looking until we lost the light, but there was no further sign of any Emperor Penguins. Frustratingly, we had quickly left the one we knew about long behind us. It was time to set the alarm for another early start, albeit having seen an Emperor Penguin, I allowed myself a lie-in to about 04:30.