Young male elephant seal (Source: Own photo)
I had been looking forward to visiting Antarctica for a number of reasons. For one, Antarctica my seventh and final continent. It also happens to be my 150th country and destination number 180 on the Been App’s list of UN recognised ‘countries and territories’. Far more importantly, I have wanted for some time to experience the white continent about which my knowledge has been sorely lacking in both nuance and depth.
A lonely Chinstrap Penguin on an iceberg (Source: Own photo)
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It takes a few days to get to Antarctica from almost anywhere. Our journey began with a flight from Barcelona to Madrid, and then onwards with Iberia to Santiago’s Arturo Merino Benitez Airport. The Spanish national carrier no longer serves its famous Beef Consommé, but the new menu includes a delicious Galician octopus and shrimp with black rice, so that is OK. I wash down the seafood with a smooth Rioja.
Snowy Sheathbill (Source: Own photo)
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On the approach to Santiago, you can see the city lights spreading out beneath the plane in the shape of a giant hand puppet, each finger representing a branch of expansion of this enormous settlement of nine million people. Snow-clad peaks of the Andes stand like sentinels along the eastern edges of the city. The new airport terminal has been completed since last time I was here.
With a day to spare before the onwards flight to Punta Arenas, I take a hike along the Mapocho river as it meanders past the foot of the San Cristobal ridge towards downtown Santiago. These days, Mapocho River is barely a trickle as most of its waters are diverted to the mining industry, which remain Chile’s most important source of income. The mines make a very small number of Chileans extremely wealthy, but use so much water there is barely enough left for anyone else.
Downtown Santiago is busy and noisy. Street vendors from the outskirts arrive in the early morning hours to set up stalls along the sidewalks, where they sell trinkets. Young women stand in front of stores to entice customers into their shop rather than the identical one next door. They stand there all day, yet never fail to return a greeting with an easy smile when you catch their eye and say hello in passing. As everywhere else in Latin America, it is so easy to forget just how hard most Latin Americans struggle every day to make a living. Most people in these countries have little or no education to raise the value of their labour above that of a mere commodity. Poverty comes with a smile in Latin America.
Santiago viewed towards north-east from Santa Lucia hill downtown (Source: Own photo)
The San Cristobal ridge separates the rich areas of Santiago – Las Condes, Vitacura, and Providencia – from the much larger and poorer sections of the city. You can see both sides of the city if you take the funicular up 300 meters from the city centre to the white marble statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the top of the ridge.
The rich neighbourhoods are reminiscent of Petralbes in Barcelona; pleasant, if somewhat quiet and boring. These lavish areas are dominated by standalone apartment-blocks surrounded by park-like gardens, trees, and electric fences. Between the residences, there are classy shops and sports clubs. The restaurants serve exquisite seafood, fresh fruit, vegetables, and top-notch beef. And good wine. The dishes exude Latin American boldness – big portions, lots of colour, great taste.
Santiago north-west of San Cristobal ridge (Source: Own photo)
The less well-off Santiaguinos live in the great western and southern expanses of city, where the poorest among them are holed up in endless shantytowns beneath corrugated iron roofs that, from above, look like the tightly-packed scales on the back of a giant alligator. Chile, like so many other Latin American nations, is a beautiful country with an ugly income distribution. And a severe shortage of ideas for how to make the country work for everyone.
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The next leg of the journey to Antarctica is a 3.5 hours flight to Punto Arenas, a southern outpost with a pioneer feel. The drive from the airport runs along the Magellan Strait and across the water you can see the island of Tierra del Fuego. We are deep in Patagonia. The vegetation consists of grasses, swamps, bushes, and low gnarly trees, which bend eastwards under the constant pressure of the prevailing westerly winds.
Punta Arenas (Source: Own photo)
Punta Arenas has the typical feel of fishing and mining towns near the polar regions. They are not particularly aesthetic, but they are functional. The air is clean and the skies are big. The people, kind and tough, all live off the wild in one way or another. Supply ships sit at anchor off the harbour-front and countless seabirds have made a home of an old dilapidated pier. The austral summer sun lingers with soft blue hues far into the evening.
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Passengers are required to don their polar gear before they board the special flight to KGI, the King George Island airport in the South Shetland Islands. This is the gateway to the Antarctic. It is a two-hour flight almost due south from Punta Arenas. The KGI airport has no instruments and no buildings; it is simply a short runway made of gravel. Pilots land by sight, so flights are frequently cancelled when the visibility is poor. Nearby, a few rudimentary containers have been equipped with plastic chairs to serve as waiting rooms for departing passengers. A short bus-ride away, you reach a beach with some research stations, fuel storage, a slipway, and a Russian church. We are taken to our ship in big black zodiacs with 60 HP Yamaha outboards.
Arrival at King George Island (Source: Own photo)
Almost expeditions to Antarctica are sea-based. There is a range of options available depending on the size of your wallet, but the more you pay the more time you get to spend on excursions along the coastline and onto the Antarctic mainland. Which is really what matters, so make sure you get as many excursions as you can afford.
A volcano has melted a hole in the icecap at its base (Source: Own photo)
Antarctica is wild country. The northern-most Antarctic Peninsula is volcanic with forbidding shard-like peaks in black rock that emerge from the mist. Thick sheets of ancient blue ice spill into the ocean between the peaks and the hinterland is an endless expanse of snow up to five kilometres thick. Glaciers groan and crack along the coastline as icebergs break away and float into the Southern Ocean. Each winter, the sea freezes to double the size of the continent. There is so much water locked up on Antarctica that, should it melt, global sea levels would rise by 60 metres. Even a modest rise in temperature of 3 °C will push up global sea levels by a frightening 6.4 metres.
Ice enough for everyone (Source: Own photos)
Global warming has already heavily impacted western Antarctica, where sea temperatures have risen by 1 °C since the mid-1950s. At current sea temperatures, the entire Western Antarctica ice sheet will be gone in 500 years, resulting in a 3.3 meters rise in global sea levels. Eastern Antarctica’s ice sheets are also melting, but more slowly because Eastern Antarctica is more elevated and therefore colder.
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Our expedition ship, World Explorer, leaves KGI and crosses the Bransford Strait in the night as we head south towards the islands just off Antarctic Peninsula.
World Explorer (Source: Own photos)
First port of call is Palaver Point, a rocky outcrop named after its noisy penguin colony. Hundreds of Gentoo and Chinstrap Penguins live here in colonies of sticky and smelly okra-coloured guano.
Gentoo Penguins (Source: Own photos)
The nesting sites are high up the mountain sides, on the most exposed and barren rocks. The key, if you are a penguin parent, is to find a place that never gets covered in snow. You can spot the nesting sites by following the ‘penguin’ highways made from the patter of little penguin feet. Inevitably, the nesting sites are exposed to the worst of wind and cold, but these birds are equipped to handle the harsh conditions. Males and females share the task of looking after the eggs and the young. When one penguin is nesting, the other penguin goes fishing for krill.
Penguin highways (Source: Own photos)
Kayak Point, the second stop, has a colony of super-cute Chinstrap Penguins, which can be recognised by the white ring around their eyes. There are also Adelie Penguins. Thirty years ago, there were 3,500 Adelie penguins at Kayak Point and 200 Gentoo penguins. Today, the numbers have been reversed. The reason is global warming, which has reduced the volume of krill. Adelie penguins are particularly affected, because they only eat krill, while the generalist Gentoo Penguins also eat other stuff.
Adelie Penguins (Source: Own photos)
How, you may ask, does global warming reduce the volume of krill? It is simple: warmer waters mean less sea ice. When surface water freezes, it increases the salinity of the water left behind. Saline water is more dense than fresher water, so it sinks to the bottom, where it pushes up less saline water, thereby setting in motion a cycle of up and down-welling. The rising columns of less saline water lift nutrients to the surface, which in turn stimulates the growth of phytoplankton upon which the krill feeds. Hence, less ice means less food for the krill and therefore less krill.
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As the journey continues south, it becomes progressively more spectacular. World Explorer now heads into the Lemaire Channel, a narrow section of water packed with icebergs and low cloud. As the sun starts to set, the weather clears to reveal stark mountains with sparkling white snow and icebergs that float through an orange twilight.
Lemaire Channel (Source: Own photos)
The following morning delivers a large number of whales, many of which come close to the ship. The sound and plumes of water made by the Humpback whales as they blow can be seen and heard for miles in either direction. Each Humpback is easily identified by the unique pattern in white and black on the lower side of its tail. A pod of Orcas cuts through the water with their distinct dorsal fins and white-spotted streamlined bodies.
Humpbacks and an Orca (Source: Own photos)
World Explorer arrives at Pleneau Bay, a large body of water packed with icebergs and growlers. There are many birds here: Antarctic Cormorants, Antarctic Skuas, South Polar Skuas, Antarctic Terns, and Antarctic Shags are particularly prevalent.
Antarctica birds (Source: Own photos)
You also see Kelp Gulls, sometimes perched on top of icebergs, but often flying very close to the water as they hunt for food.
Kelp Gulls (Source: Own photos)
At Petermann Island, our next stop, there is an Argentinian research station and the cross to commemorate three young British scientists, who got lost on the ice and were never found. Here we see our first seals – Weddels, Crabeaters, and young Elephants. They lie on the ice to regulate their temperatures and to rest after diving for food, mainly krill. Elephant seals can dive to a depth of two kilometres.
Crabeater, Weddel, and young Elephant seals (Source: Own photos)
We also catch a glimpse of a leopard seal, but it moves to fast for me to get a picture. Later, it catches a penguin and tears it to pieces by thrashing the penguin from side to side and smashing it against the surface of the water. Leopard seals have a fierce reputation, but krill actually makes up 70-80% of their diet. In the distance, not so far from the Leopard seal kill, penguins cross an ice floe on the way to somewhere. One of them stops to look back at a straggler. Two headless penguins inspect their plumage.
Penguins (Source: Own photos)
In Orne Harbour, we see spectacular ice formations. One looks like a burnt and broken gateway, maybe to some kind of hell. The other has the face of a disgruntled Muppet Show character. We drift slowly through the silence in our zodiacs.
Ice (Source: Own photos)
The final stop is a beautiful curved glacier near the airport on King George Island. A wall of glacier ice moves inexorably towards the sea and we are able to view the spectacle from the slopes of a nearby recent volcano. The views towards the World Explorer and the Drake Channel to the north are spectacular. Below, on the pumice beach, we find a molting female elephant seal taking the sun. We are able to approach to within just a couple of meters to enjoy the details of this fascinating animal.
Last stop on the journey - views and seals (Source: Own photos)
Someone asked if me if I could summarise Antarctica in just one word. I cannot. Before I arrived, I was told that Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and driest continent on earth, but these words had no meaning to me. Having been there, I can say that this is closest I have ever been to pristine. The wildlife, astonishingly abundant, exhibits no fear of human beings. I did not see a single piece of plastic on the beaches. Many destinations we visited are still uncharted. Some areas were only been named in the mid-1980s, even in this the most visited part of the 7th Continent. Antarctica is grand, forbidding, intimidating, humbling, yet beautiful and awesome. And above all, it is changeable. The delicate beauty of this place morphs into senseless brutality in the blink of an eye. Still and warm sunny days give way to dark storms without warning. Temperatures plunge in minutes. The thought struck me again and again how my own survival in this place, should I get lost, would be counted in hours, not days.
The End
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