The Seventh Continent
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Our Ship, The World Explorer
The World Explorer is leased exclusively by Quark Expeditions. It is a very comfortable ship that, on our trip, had 167 passengers and 125 crew. The World Explorer was built especially for polar expeditions and is rated as a 1B ice class ship and can handle moderate ice encounters. It spends the Antarctic summers in Antarctica and the Arctic summers up north.
Whaler’s Bay, Deception Island
Deception Island is a fascinating place. It is actually a volcanic caldera created from thousand of years of volcanic activity. A narrow opening in the caldera resulted in the interior being flooded with seawater. The island is 30 km wide. It is still an active volcano – one of two in Antarctica. The last eruptions were in 1967, 1969, and 1970 from a very shallow depth of 10 km. These recent eruptions caused the two research stations on the island to be permanently evacuated. The ground is still hot to the touch. The island shows extensive mud flows and deep volcanic ash. A very protected harbor exists inside the caldera and is named Whalers Bay. In the early 1800s there was extensive Fur Seal hunting which decimated the seal population which, thankfully, ended the hunting. It was also home to a highly industrialized Norwegian whale processing station that existed from 1912 until 1931 when the market for whale oil collapsed, thus saving whales from an almost certain extinction. During WWII, the British established a base there.
Cuverville Island
The Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899 discovered Cuverville Island. It is an Important Bird Area (IBA) and is home to a Gentoo Penguin colony numbering approximately 13,000 individuals.
We saw many chick chases in which the chick and sometimes unrelated chicks chase down a parent who has just returned from the sea with food. When we were there the chicks were adolescents and some bigger than the parents. Parents seem to think they should leave the nest!
Lemaire Channel
Lemaire Channel is a relatively short strait, 11 km long, in Antarctica. At its narrowest part, it is only 600 meters wide. The channel is surrounded by very steep rocky cliffs and glaciers. The channel usually contains many icebergs which can block the channel for ships. It is a popular location for ships visiting Antarctica.
Pléneau Bay
Pléneau Island is a relatively small island, .8 km long, originally charted as a peninsula of Hovgaard Island by the French Expedition of 1903 to 1905. In 1957 the Argentinians discovered it was an actually an island. Pléneau Bay is often called an iceberg graveyard. It is home to many Humpback Whales.
Petermann Island
Petermann Island was discovered by a German expedition conducted from 1873 to 1874. It is 1.8 km long and 1.2 km wide. Half of the island is covered by a permanent ice cap. Argentina built a refuge hut there in 1955. The French Expedition of 1908 to 1910 wintered over in a small cove in Petermann Island. The refuge hut is located in the middle of a Gentoo Penguin colony consisting of some 6,000 birds. The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA).
Danco Island – Neko Harbor
Danco Island is a small island in the Antarctic Peninsula and is approximately 2 km long. It was first charted by the Belgians during their 1897 to 1899 expedition. It was named for Emile Danco, a geophysicist, who died during the Belgian expedition in 1898.
Foyn Harbor – Enterprise Island
Foyn Harbor lies between Enterprise and Nansen Islands. It is named for a Norwegian whaling ship, the Svend Foyn, anchored there from 1921 to 1922. The harbor contains numerous Humpback Whales.
In one of these photographs, the mother whale was training her calf in whale skills such as diving. The calf was a bit awkward with the process. The photograph them in a double fluke dive.
Continent of Antarctica – Portal Point
Portal Point is the first and only location where we stepped foot on mainland Antarctica. It is so named because from this point there is a suitable route to the top of the Antarctic Plateau. The British had a hut there, which was active from 1956 to 1958. In 1997 the hut was dismantled and transported to a museum in the Falkland Islands. The foundation of the hut remains at Portal Point. There are no penguins because of the extensive snow cover. Weddell seals are common.
