It’s 3:30 am and we are docked in the sleepy Nile village of Edfu. For some reason I was wakened about an hour ago and was unable able to reenter my slumbers. Now I’m up on the sundeck of our ship, where it is finally cool, admiring the crescent moon, listening to serenading crickets and awakening roosters, and reflecting on the past couple of days.

Weather has been beastly hot – about 20 degrees over average for this time of year – and somehow that seems to have added to the surreal experience of exploring ancient Egypt. We started in Cairo last Friday evening, walked the Great Pyramids of Giza and Saqqara on Saturday, then visited the Egyptian Museum and the amazing trove of gold-covered artifacts from King Tut’s tomb on Sunday. After a fun lunch at a local koshery “diner,” we flew to Luxor.

See larger version of slideshow at bottom.

Ancient Egypt had two natural centers of power – north and south. Everything here has always owed its existence to the Nile. So naturally, the country was divided into Upper Egypt, referring to the upper reaches of the Nile in the South, and Lower Egypt, referring to the lower region of the Nile in the delta that fans out over an alluvial plane reaching to the Mediterranean.

From time immemorial (since 3100 BC in this case), Memphis was the capital of the North and Thebes (present day Luxor) was the power base in the South. When the country was united, as it was for most of its recorded history, the capital was either at Memphis, during the Old Kingdom (3100 – 2055 BC), or at Thebes, during the Middle and New Kingdoms (2055 – 343 BC).

Yesterday, we started early in a well-intended, but ultimately vain, attempt to beat the unseasonable heat. We started at the Valley of the Kings, across the Nile from Luxor (ancient Thebes) before 8 am. After a briefing in the visitor center, we walked (while others rode the trolley) through the Valley to the first tomb – that of Ramses VII of the 20th Dynasty in the New Kingdom. He’d died young, we were told, and his tomb was finished hurriedly.

As we meandered down the underground shaft leading to the chamber containing his sarcophagus, it was difficult to grasp that we were looking at wall paintings that were brushed into the plaster 3500 years ago. It was even harder to realize that since we’d walked through the pyramids of Giza, then visited the first of all pyramids, the step-pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara (built over 5100 years ago), on Saturday, we’ve somehow fast-forwarded 1600 years. This mere wrinkle in time by Egyptian standards is the equivalent of jumping from the fall of Rome to the present day – a mind-boggling span to modern day mortals. These vast expanses of time endured by this civilization defy my 21st century, American-with-a-390-year-heritage brain.

We next visited King Tut’s tomb, and paid our respects to his dilapidated form, his mummy now resting in a Plexiglas, climate-controlled case. For all the gold lavished on the burial of this teenager king, and with all due respect to remarkable ancient Egyptian embalming techniques that preserved for us at least his form, his gold seems to have endured into the after-life far better than his body!

From Tut’s tomb, we split into two groups – those willing to brave the growing heat for a challenging hike over the hill to Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple, and those who would visit one more temple before rendezvousing with us by coach. The walkers then clambered up a donkey trail, almost vertical for a couple hundred meters, then found better routes that zigzagged to a point about 500 feet above the valley floor.

The views improved as we climbed, and when we leveled off, we stopped for a water break and a group photo with the Valley of the Kings spread out below us. The colors of the desert hills snapped in the simmering mid-morning heat, rich in contrast – bright blue sky, hues of desert brown and yellow, and greens from beyond the knife-edge line that marked the reach of the Nile’s life-giving nourishment.

We then walked several hundred meters along a cliff looking down into a valley where, for a period of roughly 600 years, kings of Egypt at the height of her power and wealth used that wealth in an attempt to provide for their future, their afterlife. Here they commissioned tombs with hidden entrances, the approach to the valley itself hidden by numerous blind turns. They laid up for themselves treasure, not on earth, but for the afterlife and believed they could defy our modern platitude that you “can’t take it with you.”

Carefully, we worked our way down the other side of the hill, now earning eye-popping views of the funerary temple of Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh, carved out of the opposite side of the mountain. By 11 o’clock, we gained the cool of our air-conditioned bus, drenched in sweat, but satisfied with our trek through time, our journey from the Valley of the Kings to the temple of a woman who wore a beard and coveted the power of the pharaohs.

I’m still coming to grips with Egypt; to date, it defies my attempts. The glories of its past are epic: the first great nation-state on the planet, the life-giving waters of the Nile, the quantum leap they seemed to have over the rest of mankind in crafts of civilization – writing and math and the arts (and state bureaucracy!). Yet their religion was a convoluted polyglot of animal deities that changed roles and positions and defied rational thought – at least mine.

Today, for example, we visit the Temple of Horus at Edfu, dedicated to a falcon deity that was originally part of the Creation myth, laying the Cosmic egg from which the supreme sun-god hatched. Later, he apparently morphed as a falcon into the son of humanoid parents Osiris and Isis, the trio becoming, in some respects, the “patron saint family” of Egypt. Horus’ most noteworthy feat was his ongoing dual with his hippopotamus uncle, Seth, who murdered Horus’ father, Osiris, then cut him into fourteen pieces hid throughout Egypt. Since in ancient Egyptian thought, the physical body is essential to an afterlife, Isis collected the pieces of Osiris’ body and, through her magic arts, Iris reconstructed him and brought him back to life, whereafter Horus was conceived and pursued his familial dual with his uncle, and Osiris became god of the dead in the underworld.

And now, I’m sitting here at 4:30 in the morning some 3300 years after King Tut, listening to the call to prayer of the supremely monotheistic Islamic culture of modern Egypt. All around me, the wavering voices are broadcasting chants from minarets, competing with each other in a deafening cacophony of predawn piety. Here in modern Egypt, we’ve seen the glories of the Ancients, well represented, it seems, by the wealth of King Tut’s tomb. And we’ve witnessed the poverty, high unemployment, and ever-present squalor of modern Egypt. In between lie 2000 years of additional cultures and empires and stories – bridges from the past.

The juxtaposition of these contrasting images creates an alluring and maddening collage in my mind, a collage that fades and shimmers and sharpens like a mirage through rising waves of heat on this March morning on the Nile.

Dan and Scott are currently leading Walking Adventures’ first tour through Egypt & Jordan!

By Dan Friesen

Another out-of-this-world day in Antarctica began this morning at Gourdin Island. As leader of the only group on board, I am often invited to go ashore in the first boat with staff to check out the landing site and prepare to receive passengers. Today’s landing site came with a greeting party of three large fur seals, which Expedition Leader Megan and staff members Hannah and Ursula encouraged to leave the immediate area by banging rocks together. The seals reluctantly complied, but not without loud growling complaints.

Gourdin Island is a magical place alive with penguin activity, snowy sheathbill birds (think “Antarctic chicken”) scavenging their way through the colony, and skua birds on the prowl for unwary penguin fledglings. Three of our Zodiacs arrived in the landing area in time to witness a couple of ravenous leopard seals picking off young, inexperienced penguins as they entered the waters offshore – a harsh, but fascinating reality of the polar food chain. Reaching the summit of the island required a challenging climb through loose shale, but rewarded us with magnificent island panoramas, views of the Antarctica Peninsula across a narrow ribbon of the Bransfield Strait, and the spectacle of a seemingly endless array of glistening icebergs of all shapes and sizes adorning the waters like sparkling sequins on blue velvet.

Leaving Gourdin Island, we steamed around the corner into the Antarctic Sound and our first encounter with tabular icebergs. Icebergs seen to date on our voyage have resulted primarily from calving glaciers – chunks of glacier that fall into the sea as they are pushed beyond the land by the river of ice behind. We learn more each day about the diversity of ice in this polar wonderland, and today’s lesson involved “ice shelves” – massive sheets of ice that can be 200 hundred feet thick and more, extending from the continental ice cap out into the sea. Eventually, as gravity pushes the ice field further into the water, the weight of the “shelf” is unsupportable, and huge pieces break off, creating “tabular icebergs.” These enormous bergs tend to be blocky in appearance, can have diameters from hundreds of meters to hundreds of kilometers, and are relatively flat on top, hence the “tabular” label.

It was a perfect sunny afternoon, which we spent mesmerized by this uniquely Antarctic dance of nature. Though the word “Titanic” didn’t surface, as the Polar Star threaded its way through a dreamlike world of dazzling white ice, azure seas, and cornflower blue skies, it was certainly comforting to know that we were traveling on an icebreaker. At our furthest point south in the Sound, Zodiacs were lowered and we zipped around the icebergs, fitting in a brief landing on the continent, before we rejoined the mother ship.

Back aboard the Polar Star, we enjoyed another delicious dinner, interesting conversation with fellow passengers from around the globe, and the still unbelievable parade of massive icebergs. As dusk was falling, the ship returned north around the Antarctic Sound and we relaxed in anticipation of the evening lecture. Suddenly, Simon, a staff naturalist most often found on the bridge with a pair of binoculars spotting wildlife, came onto the ship public address system.

Simon had spotted an iceberg ahead that had tipped on its side. As an iceberg calves sections off its extremities, its center of gravity changes, generating significant shifts and tilts in its position in the water. This particular iceberg’s tabletop was now sitting diagonally, pointing down into the water at approximately 45°. What made this iceberg unique, however, was that it had attracted several hundred young chinstrap penguins. Even from a distance, we could see a large group of penguins standing on the relatively steep surface of the iceberg.

As we approached the berg, we began to see several hundred more penguins swimming in the frigid waters at its base, and dozens attempting to “jump” out of the water and onto the surface of the ice. Through wave action, five to eight feet of ice had eroded from the bottom edge of the berg. This required the penguins to propel themselves out of the water like rockets, high enough to “land” on their feet five to eight feet above the water on ice that sat at a precarious 45° angle.

Our captain changed course, circling the iceberg while even the kitchen staff, who had already spent several months in Antarctica, came out on deck with cameras and camcorders to experience this unique event. After one revolution around the berg, we were still fascinated by the jumping penguins, and Megan, our Expedition Leader, announced that we would circle the iceberg a second time.

Over and over we watched as penguins shot up out of the ocean, most hitting the side of the ice shelf and dropping back unsuccessfully into the water. For every ten penguins that jumped, two or three landed on their feet on the ice, the rest plunging back into the sea to try again in an amazing display of endurance and determination.

After the second time around the iceberg, we were wondering how the captain was feeling about this merry-go-round, when Megan came on the PA system and announced that, “by popular demand,” we were going to circle yet a third time around the iceberg of the jumping penguins. No one complained, and many of us on the starboard side of the ship who’d come back inside, watched from our cabins and tried to take photos in the blue-gray light of an Antarctic twilight.

“Tough like a penguin” is a slogan we are beginning to hear around the ship as we develop an increasing admiration for and fascination with this astonishing, charming little Antarctic animal.

Dan & Pat are leading Walking Adventures’ second tour through Argentina and the Antarctic! Additional photos will be added to the blogs on Dan’s return. Click here to view the itinerary for Exploring Antarctica 2010. Click here to view more blogs from Christmas in Antarctica (2009) or Exploring Antarctica.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

21.00 hours

Position:         

62° 39’ S

60° 37′ W

By Dan Friesen

We made our first landfall at Deception Island this morning, an active, sea-filled volcano used by American and British sealers as early as 1820.

Our intrepid ice-breaker, the Polar Star, sailed through Neptune’s Bellows, a narrow opening in the caldera wall and we were offered two hikes to explore the volcanic desolation of this remote corner of the South Shetland Islands, the archipelago to the north of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The highlight of the day, however, occurred just north of Deception on Livingstone Island at Hannah Point. Here, we offloaded into Zodiacs around 3 pm and, once ashore, divided into groups, each led by a member of the Polar Star Expedition team. First of the Point’s many attractions were large colonies of chinstrap and gentoo penguins, which we threaded our way through delicately. Though they were largely indifferent to us, the “rules of engagement” when visiting this pristine wilderness require that we do our best to keep our distance and not alter the behavior of the locals.

As we picked our way through the colony, the hillside was alive with noisy neighborhoods of penguins. On the edges of the colonies, adults had cloistered themselves as they endured what we were told is a “catastrophic molt.” In the space of about 3 weeks, they lose, and regrow, all of their feathers, and remain completely isolated from the colony during that period of vulnerability. In addition, young fledgling penguins, not even hatched when we were here in December, were everywhere also loosing their down feathers, sporting comical, “bad-hair day” outfits as they morphed from fluffy gray down into the sleek black and white feathers of their parents’ plumage. Between molting adults and maturing chicks, great quantities of feathers and down wafted through the colony like drifting snow.

What struck me most, however, were the “chick chases” that seemed to erupt spontaneously amongst the colony with great frequency. Parent penguins feed their young by spending extended time at sea to gorge on krill, a tiny shrimp-like animal that forms the foundation of the food chain throughout the southern oceans. Upon return to the colony, parents regurgitate the partially digested krill directly into the throat of their offspring.

We arrived in the South Shetland Islands at the time of the year when parents are ready to be “empty nesters.” Their parenting is essentially over and they feel the urge to get through their own catastrophic molt and into a new coat of feathers before the chill of winter sets in. Instead of kicking the chicks out of the nest, however, gentoo parents simply run away from them!

Chicks still crave the krill, on the other hand, and expect parents to continue paying the rent and stocking the fridge indefinitely. Running is the parental response with a dual purpose – to strengthen the strongest of the chicks, and to give the chicks a not-so-subtle hint that it’s time to move out and “get a job.”

As we slowly picked our way through the colony, every so often, a parent gentoo took off running at a dead penguin sprint, a comical sight made more so by the chicks in hot pursuit, right on their little penguin heels. Sometimes there was one chick chasing, and sometimes two – the chicks basically the same size as the parent, but distinguishable by patches of gray down feathers. Sometimes the parent stopped after 30 or 40 meters and fed the chick, but sometimes they continued running, the trio threading its way double-time through the colony, neighbors ignoring them as though this were completely normal behavior. Occasionally, the chase resulted in a crash, chicks stumbling in their eagerness to catch their more sure-footed parents. Sometimes the parent outran the chicks, and a few chases continued until the runners were out of sight, disappearing behind a hill.

We all enjoyed more than a few chuckles as we observed this comical penguin behavior, but I wonder if American parents have something to learn from the gentoo penguin. Just maybe our consumer-oriented, obesity-plagued culture would be a bit healthier, a bit more robust, if parents would occasionally simply lock the house, grab the car keys, and go out for a run!

Dan & Pat are leading Walking Adventures’ second tour through Argentina and the Antarctic! Click here to view the itinerary for Exploring Antarctica 2010. Click here to view more blogs from Christmas in Antarctica (2009) or Exploring Antarctica.

By Dan Friesen

Departing Ushuaia, Argentina for the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica.

The tango show we enjoyed Saturday night in Buenos Aires was amazing. It started with a wonderful dinner featuring a slice of famous Argentinean steak so thick you could almost parachute from the top. Once the dancers took the stage, however, all thoughts of food vanished as we fell under the spell of the tapestry of tango. Six live musicians performed from a platform above the stage, visible only when floodlights shone through a translucent gossamer-like curtain. Dancers began as stationary, backlit silhouettes in sophisticated, stylish poses, then morphed into motion as smooth as silk, gliding across the floor silently, as though dancing on a magical, frictionless surface. The precision made Swiss watch-making look a bit sloppy! The choreography would inspire the Rockettes. And if ever there is a move to include tango dancing as an Olympic sport, they’ll get my vote.

After flying 2000 miles south, Tierra del Fuego National Park blessed us with three delightful seasons during one walk, and a fourth last night when it snowed during dinner. Our guide, Mingo, kept giving us dramatically differing 15-minute weather forecasts, the typical span of time it takes for weather to move from the nearest visible range of mountains.

But now we’re finally on the ship. Logistical challenges (east coast snow storms and west coast airplane mechanical failures), lost luggage, and scintillating connections with the history, culture, and scenery of Argentina have given way to a sunset cruise out of the Beagle Channel and into the dreaded rolling swells of the Drake Passage. All is yet calm, but the Drake, that tumultuous barrier of ocean between us and Antarctica, is still three or four hours ahead!

Assistant Adventure Leader Pat and I share a lovely cabin, all facilities en suite. One nostalgic aspect of last December’s trip I am most assuredly NOT going to miss are those post-midnight toilet trots in the middle of the Drake Passage, staggering down the gyrating hallway in the fog of slumber like a drunken sailor, groping and grasping for the door of the lieu!

Antarctica 2010 – here we come!

Dan & Pat are leading Walking Adventures’ second tour through Argentina and the Antarctic! Additional photos will be added to the blogs on Dan’s return. Click here to view the itinerary for Exploring Antarctica 2010. Click here to view more blogs from Christmas in Antarctica (2009) and Exploring Antarctica.

WAI Leader’s Adventure Log

December 14, 2009

21.30 hours

Latitude: 65° 14’ S

Longitude: 066° 15.35’ W

By Dan Friesen

Many of us have seen the amazing story of the Emperor Penguins in the movie “March of the Penguins.”  Through this remarkable film we witnessed the incredible devotion to procreation these irrepressible birds display by hatching their eggs and nurturing their young in the most harsh conditions imaginable!

See larger version of slideshow at bottom.

In any case, what we witnessed today was, in my (insulated-with-21st-century-cold-weather-gear) Antarctic explorer’s opinion, pretty unimaginable in its own right.

Our Zodiacs came ashore at Barrientos Island, part of the Aitcho Island group, under typically gloomy skies this morning after breakfast. As we arrived, Expedition Leader Hannah pointed out the island’s lone King Penguin, who apparently was lost, maybe permanently since Hannah said he was here the last time they visited as well. Standing stock still, with a stance reminiscent of the sentries at Buckingham Palace, he endured the staccato of camera shutters as the Polar Star paparazzi crowded around to capture the only unique sight in view. By now, we’ve waded through so many gentoo and chinstrap penguin colonies that having this taller, more stately-looking King Penguin to gaze upon was a bit of a novelty to our penguin-jaded eyes. 

Hannah had mentioned that there might be some elephant seals pulled up on the beach on the other side of the island. This meant a hike through the snow and over a saddle on a ridgeline to reach the beach. Most opted out of this level of exertion, fearing, I suppose, that what waited on the other side was no more exciting than the couple of elephant seals we’d seen yesterday, huddled together like a couple of massive, overstuffed bratwurst. (The video at left features Dan’s encounter with an elephant seal – details below.)

They were wrong! What waited on the other side was the almost indescribable March of the Elephant Seals! But first, we gained the distinction of marching through green snow, tinted by a species of algae that actually survives amidst these conditions! As I crested the ridge, I could see rain and snow, and some of our shipmates wandering along the beach, not much else.

Luckily, however, I didn’t turn around at that point. Kathlene and Kay from our group, as well as Pierre and Wendy from the ship staff, pointed out a group of seals huddled together under a unique volcanic cone about 100 meters away. After we watched these guys for a bit – they were a little more active than the bratwurst we saw yesterday – one of them started to move towards the beach.

As I came around the cinder cone to get a better view, I realized that there were quite a few seals along the beach, and that more than one was on the move – the March of the Elephant Seals. For the next 45 minutes we picked our way among the seals, maybe 25 or 30 of them, taking photos as much as possible through the steady rain, and working hard to keep our lenses dry enough to operate.

The seals were mainly huddled in groups of two and three, snuggling together more out of instinct than the need for warmth. The day was not cold – maybe 35 or 40 degrees Fahrenheit – and these animals clearly carried enough blubber to ward off temperatures far lower than that. Occasionally, a scuffle would break out, one or the other of a group being rejected from the huddle and protesting noisily.

What fascinated us most, however, was the march from the wallow to the water. In particular, the march of one massive seal, probably a male but not yet full grown since he lacked the huge bulbous nose that gives this species their name. We watched as this seal, a massive, obese inchworm, made the laborious struggle from the snow to the beach. Later in the day we learned that the breeding grounds for elephant seals in the South Georgia Island, across the Drake Passage, are dominated by so-called “beach master” males weighing 6000 pounds on average (the largest ever recorded was at 11,000 pounds).

This guy must have been at least 3000 to 4000 pounds, and had to stop every three or four inchworm cycles to rest from the exertion of moving that much weight against the friction of the snow and sand. Slowly he worked his way over the snow and onto the beach, resting frequently as he went, and offering us plenty of time to get our cameras out. Finally, he reached the welcoming waters and we could almost feel his relief as the buoyancy of the water eased his struggle. Only the challenge of keeping our cameras dry kept us from bursting into applause. Jabba the Hut would have been proud! And after the moving performance of this seal, I maintain that the “March of the Elephant Seals” could perhaps be as noble, if not as lengthy, as the “March of the Penguins.”

Christmas in Antarctica 2009 is Walking Adventures’ first tour to the 7th Continent! Click here to read more of Dan’s Antarctic blogs.

After last night’s amazing whale encounter, I was wondering if this morning’s shore excursion might be a bit of a letdown. When my first gaze out the window of my cabin was met with a gloomy, gray polar morning, I seriously doubted whether the 4:30 am wakeup call was going to be justified. Nevertheless, I enjoyed another hearty breakfast from the galley, wiggled my way through the Wet Room, and dutifully donned my Pillsbury doughboy cold-weather suit to join the rest of our group in line for the zodiacs.

(See below for a larger version of the slideshow.)

Expedition leader, Hannah, met us ashore and welcomed us to Pleneau Island, directing us to a couple of elephant seals on a nearby point in the middle of a rookery of gentoo penguins. By now, we’ve become accustomed to the gentoo penguin: we laugh at their waddling antics ashore and are amazed at their agility in the water; we understand their regrettable habit of stealing stones from one another’s nest, but I have to admit that their lack of hygiene still comes as somewhat of a shock to most of us.

We were dismayed, for example, by the revelation that these cuddly, cute, charming creatures have the ability to defecate with the explosive force of a bazooka and the prolific volume of a fire hose! We were disillusioned, furthermore, to discover that the red droppings (red from the krill they eat) blanket high percentages of rookery real estate, as well as the trails between the rookeries and the sea. We were disturbed by the growing awareness that those reddish-brown stains on the otherwise snowy-white breasts of the penguins are not dirt. We were disgusted to realize that the close proximity of our trails to the rookeries frequently requires us to plant our rubber boots squarely in piles of this potent, pink penguin poop!

To reach the elephant seals, we were required to negotiate a rocky outcropping through a penguin colony. To do so, we were forced to wade through a veritable trough of penguin poop. By some freak of nature, the rookery slopes downward into a narrowing funnel-like formation of rocks. By some devilish twist of fate, the drainage then accumulates in a trough-like rock ledge to a depth of three to four inches and about a foot wide. And like some unbelievably dark polar initiation rite, the only way to get past the rookery to see the elephant seals was to walk straight through the trough of penguin poop, for a distance of about 5 feet.

Most of us carried on like troopers, hoping, perhaps, that this was some Antarctic nightmare we would eventually be released from. Obediently, we worked our way through the trough, then past a gauntlet of screeching penguins (who almost sounded as if they were laughing at us for spending in excess of $10,000 to wade through their effluent) to a place where we could gawk at the pair of elephant seals.

Really, the elephant seals were pretty unremarkable. After being roused from one’s bunk at 4:30 am and braving the trough of penguin poop, one would hope for something just a little more spectacular. The most remarkable thing about these seals was their girth and relative immobility. They resembled massive overstuffed sausages, smashed up against one another. Every once in a while, one would grunt and nudge the other, which generated a rippling through their expansive layers of blubber.

We watched the seals for a few minutes, admittedly our best sighting so far of this species, then returned through the penguin guano trough, many of us opting for a trail marked out across the island.

What happened next is difficult to put into words. As we climbed through the snow up the gradual slope of the island, the light in the sky behind us began slowly to change. The blanket of gray was penetrated first by a pinprick of light far away on the eastern horizon. The light had an unearthly and selective quality, slicing through the gray in isolated beams of light.

Over the next 30 minutes we watched spellbound as we walked. Shafts of sun spotlighted certain far-off icebergs — one iceberg becoming a sunblasted, sparkling white while its neighbor remained grayish and shadowed. More and more light gradually invaded the sky, creating a continually changing play of color and light and shadow on ice, sea, sky, and snow. Finally, the sun broke through entirely, and we were completely awash in brilliant light, the clouds giving way to an expanding sky of blue.

As we reached the crest of the island, the sun illuminated a vast sea of ice ahead of us – bergs of all sizes and shapes sparkling in the breathtaking energy of this solar surprise. Every corner of the island and the sea surrounding it was now filled with light, white-breasted penguins reflecting it, hillsides of snow deflecting it, myriad surfaces of ice on the bergs dancing with it like divinely-crafted cut crystal. It was magical!

We returned to the landing filled with awe. But the magic wasn’t over. Part two of our visit to Pleneau Island offered a cruise through this world of towering, tantalizing ice in our zodiacs. After 45 minutes of winding through this fairyland of ice castles, often skirted or strafed by shades of emerald green and cobalt blue, I decided that I was okay with the 4:30 am wake-up call. I’m quite sure I’ll never forget this polar fantasy morning at Pleneau Island on the 7th continent!

Christmas in Antarctica 2009 is Walking Adventures’ first tour to the 7th Continent! Click here to read more of Dan’s Antarctic blogs.

REPORT: Close Encounters with Killer Penguins and Humpback Whales

WAI Leader’s Adventure Log

December 15, 2009

21.30 hours

Position: S: 65° 14’

W: 066° 15.35’

By Dan Friesen

Earlier this morning, we stopped at the former British scientific outpost, Port Lockroy, the only visit on the trip where travelers can participate in the “shopping for postcards and t-shirts” ritual so critical to a successful Adventure! Continuing south, we sailed under leaden skies through Lemaire Channel, a spectacle of massive glaciers and rugged mountain peaks. The blanket of gray above us was pierced in the east by a magical luminescent glow on an icefield that stretched, it seemed, to infinity.

(See below for larger version of slideshow.)

Upon arrival at Yalour Island this afternoon, our farthest point south on this expedition to the 7th continent, we began another ritual unique to this polar expedition – the Wet Room Wiggle. The Wet Room has only one entry point and one exit doorway onto the deck, from where zodiacs are loaded. In between, passengers wade single file through the melee like spawning salmon headed upstream, dodging elbows and knees of other dressing passengers en route to their particular spot in the Wet Room, where their particular set of cold weather gear is stored.

Fully attired (most of us are using the red parka shells issued by Polar Star), passengers are covered from head to toe in multiple layers in high-tech, cold-resistant fabrics and exhibit a degree of flexibility ranging somewhere between a retired sumo wrestler and the Pillsbury doughboy. In appearance, we’re almost completely indistinguishable from one another.

We tramped down the metal gangway into the bobbing zodiacs, half of us bound for shore, while the other half zipped out into the channel to gape at icebergs. As I sat on the broad rubber sides of these sturdy little vessels, Sam from New York City sat to my left, Mae and Maggie from Hong Kong were on my right, and I was flanked on the end by Lyn, a WAI traveler from Ontario.

As we wound through the channel, my emotions ranged between a thrill of wonder at the surreal shapes and colors of the ice – a veritable fairyland of ancient ice, carved into fantastical shapes by the planet’s harshest elements – and a cold-weather fortress mentality. I burrowed deeper into my layers of protection, constantly flipping my mitten tips off to work the controls of my camera as we motored among the icy pinnacles, then covering them again, willing the warmth to return in time for the next flurry of camera clicks.

Deeply engrossed, at one point, in capturing the finer points of a lovely blue-hued berg, shouts erupted on both my left and right, and Sam, Mae, and Maggie jumped suddenly to the middle of the zodiac. Alarmed, I shifted to see what had happened, fearing someone had fallen overboard, but Mae and Maggie were by this time laughing. We had been victims of a penguin “attack.”

Penguins swim with a delightful “porpoising” action, jumping out of the water in a picturesque arc, their aerodynamic little bodies perfectly designed for ocean acrobatics. Our zodiac had apparently been in their “flight path,” and two of them hit our passengers in the back in the middle of a porpoising maneuver. The only other explanation is that they were trying to get into the zodiac, perhaps to escape a predator. In any case, someone pointed out one of the perpetrators, who had just jumped out on a nearby iceberg and stood there looking innocent while we collected photographic evidence.

Finally Joseph, our zodiac driver, delivered us ashore, to explore on foot the Adélie Penguin rookeries of Yalour Island. This was our first encounter with this species – the classic “tuxedo outfit” penguin all in black and white, and quite adept at tobogganing – motoring along the snow on their tummies using their wings and legs for propulsion.

When Joseph picked us up an hour or so later, we thought we were headed back to the ship. Joseph, however, had other plans. Humpback whales had been sighted, and were interacting with the other zodiacs not far from our ship. We zipped across the waves, spray obscuring the view, to the spot where three other zodiacs circled, waiting for the two whales to make their next move. For more than an hour we played with the whales as my shipmates aimed high-powered cameras, documenting every move the leviathans made.

As Joseph maneuvered the zodiac to keep pace with whale movements, we shifted positions on board, kneeling on the floor when a whale was frighteningly close, or changing stances to get squared to the action, or sitting on the sides of the craft in the normal position. My hood kept creeping down my forehead onto my eyes, obscuring my view, and it was impossible to keep my camera lens dry, so the auto-focus kept malfunctioning. But I was spellbound!

Time after time, these friendly behemoths presented themselves – swimming alongside our zodiacs; “spyhopping” – poking their head straight out of the water to get a closer look at humans; blowing onto our boats and dusting us with whatever unsavory substance accompanies the blast of air from a whale blow hole; showing us their beautifully formed flukes again and again; and swimming toward our zodiacs, then diving beneath us, displaying their backs in a breathtaking demonstration of mass and power!

Finally, we broke off the interaction, although the whales followed us back to the ship!

We had returned an hour late from the expedition, cold, wet, and hungry, yet riding a natural high that comes only from a rare and special close encounter with the amazing forces of Creation.

Walkers arrived in Argentina on Dec 6 for the Buenos Aires & the End of the World Pre-tour and headed off for a Christmas in Antarctica on Dec 9!

Monday, December 14, 2009

06.45 hours

Position: S 64° 48.326’

W 063° 30.930’

By Dan Friesen

We are now cruising southwest through the Neumayer Channel just off the Antarctic Peninsula. Weather is overcast with light snow falling, and we are surrounded on both sides by seemingly endless cliffs of ice. In fact, I’ve seen more ice in these past few days in this tiny little sliver of Continent #7 then I would have imagined existed in the entire universe – the vastness of this frozen world is truly mind boggling! (Click here to see a full-screen version of the slideshow).

We’ve been ashore five times in the past two days. Saturday was mostly overcast, but provided the intrigue of Deception Island, an active volcano with a sea-filled caldera used as early as the 1820s by sealers and whalers as a natural shelter with the added luxury of geothermally heated water. We also went ashore at Half Moon Bay where we had our first up-close encounter with Antarctic wildlife; two species of whale were sighted earlier from the ship – humpback and minke; two species of seal were sighted ashore – weddell and elephant; and two species of penguins were sighted – chinstrap and gentoo – in addition to a slew of other bird species.

To say we were charmed by the penguins would be an understatement. They really are a comical piece of Creation! In musing on the penguin phenomenon – how they have captivated human imagination – I would guess that it may have something to with the humanlike, upright position in which they walk, the fact that their black and white markings resemble human clothing, and their often child-like behavior.

Yesterday morning at Cuverville Island, we returned by zodiac to the ship under blue skies through a gauntlet of sparkling, sun-kissed icebergs, surrounded on three sides by magnificent mountains draped with glittering glaciers, while directly ahead was the Gerlache Strait, sprinkled with stately icebergs. I remarked to the shipmate sitting next to me that we were surrounded by 270 degrees of Amazing with another 90 degrees of simply Incredible!

Yet beneath this Antarctic avalanche of scenic splendors lurks an ominous and growing wave of crime. Each time we’ve been ashore to date, we’ve encountered penguins. Most places, we’ve had the opportunity to observe penguin behavior, most often gentoo penguin behavior. I am sorry to report that stone-stealing among the penguins of Antarctica is an epidemic of sadly startling proportions. Stones are the primary building material for nests and their short supply in this land of snow and ice has apparently led to an alarming breakdown in ethics among nest-building penguins!

Yesterday afternoon, some of us hiked to the top of a ridge overlooking the mirror-like surface of Neko Harbour, which is ringed by a colossal frozen wave of blue ice that periodically calves into the harbour. Afterward, I stood with fellow Adventurer Tink McTaggart and watched a group of penguins going about their daily lives as if we weren’t even there. The penguin closest to us (Sitter #1 for purposes of this narrative) sat above her egg on a nest of stone while her mate (Thief #1 for purposes of this narrative) dutifully waddled back and forth bringing her stones in his beak and depositing them at the front of the nest. We could see no need for the stones since the nest was complete, and Sitter #1 seemed comfortable ensconced atop the egg. Yet, back and forth he went, adding to their hoard with stone after stone, some obtained by digging them out of the dirt, and some gained by more nefarious means, stolen from a neighboring nest!

Further back from us, another penguin (Sitter #2 for purposes of this narrative) sat atop a beautiful crafted nest of stones that was clearly the envy of several neighborhood stone thieves. Thief #2 stood nonchalantly to the back left of the nest and Thief #3 stood innocently to the back right. A mafia-designed extortion ring could not have worked with more ruthless efficiency. Sitter #2 knew the thieves were after her stones, but was tied to the nest by her egg-sitting duties. The three thieves made their moves, therefore, from three different angles, one at a time. While Sitter #2 snapped with her beak at Thief #1, Thief #2 snatched a stone with his beak, turned without moving his feet, and deposited it on his pile before Sitter #2 could react. By the time she craned her neck around to snap at him, Thief #2 stood there with an innocent-looking nonchalance. We could almost hear him whistling a tune. This pattern was replayed over and over during the 20 minutes or so that Tink and I stood watching.

What to do about this disappointing revelation? The problem seems to be the shortage of stones. Penguins build on high spots while the ground around them is covered with snow and ice. There just doesn’t seem to be enough stones to satisfy everyone, and penguins have reacted by developing habitual theft and hoarding behaviors. Social scientists have long debated whether poverty, in this case a lack of nest-building stones, generates crime. What if, I wondered, truckloads of stones could be deposited at each colony to alleviate the stress of the stone shortage? But then, you might end up with a sort of Penguin Welfare State in which nest builders wouldn’t have to expend much effort, and an initiative-stifling sense of entitlement would raise its ugly head.

I returned to the ship yesterday afternoon with Tink, sorely perplexed. We are finding Antarctica to be completely unlike anyplace we’ve ever traveled, and it seems to exist on a grander scale that tends to overload the senses. Yet while some are concerned that global warming requires a globally coordinated response, and others claim that Antarctica is cooling and an effort to alter worldwide behavior in this regard could be catastrophic in the other direction, and still others argue that we are just experiencing naturally occurring cycles that humans have no ability to impact, my chief concern remains the culture of thievery that is evolving among the penguin colonies of this once-noble 7th continent!

Walkers arrived in Argentina on Dec 6 for the Buenos Aires & the End of the World Pre-tour and headed off for a Christmas in Antarctica on Dec 9!

NOTE: The following incidents are pretty close to the truth. Only names have been changed to protect those who otherwise might be too embarrassed to take another Walking Adventure.

We just sighted our first iceberg, complete with a couple of humpback whales frolicking in its wake for krill. Temperatures have turned noticeably colder in the past 24 hours during our passage south through the infamous Drake Passage, and as we returned inside after braving the icy blasts for photos, one of our shipmates was huddled off to the side, depositing his breakfast into a seasickness bag.

Hannah, our Expedition Leader, says that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most severe summertime conditions, we are experiencing a Drake Passage crossing of 7 to 8. Swells of 13-16 feet began as we left the Beagle Channel and entered the Drake Passage, the notorious body of water between South America and Antarctica. The convergence here of multiple ocean currents and the lack of any land masses at that latitude that would act as obstacles to the flow of wind and ocean currents create an incubator for rough weather and seas.

Even so, we are experiencing a rougher than usual crossing. It started only about 6 hours after departure from Ushuaia, while we were sleeping and before we had a chance to develop “sea legs.”  We awoke yesterday morning therefore, to a world in which the floor is never level and constantly moving, where anything not closeted or tied down becomes a gravity pinball, where up can turn to down in a moment, and where food can go down and come up in only slightly longer than a second!

Hannah warned us in our initial briefing about timing our movements with the roll of the ship, to avoid moving in the direction of the downward side of the roll because gravity and motion act like a catapult on our body, hurling us forcefully downhill with less than desirable consequences. My tossing and turning that first night was generated by the roll of the ship, but when I awoke, I thought, “This isn’t so bad.” Lying in bed during unstable seas, however, is different from walking about and dressing and going through one’s morning toilet. 

As I puttered around in the poorly lit, toiletless, showerless staff cabin I was assigned, I soon experienced the downhill “kiss the wall” ride to which Hannah had referred. In a moment of carelessness, I found myself running downhill with unstoppable force across my mercifully short cabin where I came in contact with an immovable object – the wall, then lay on the ground moaning as much with Drake Passage humiliation as with pain.

After finding the “washroom” (Polar Star is a Canadian ship), I continued my Drake Passage Initiation with a short and sweet session of “technicolor yodeling” (a euphemism for vomiting coined, I believe, by WAI guides Russ and Scott). The session was minor, thankfully, and certainly not enough to dissuade me from partaking in breakfast.

Passengers staggered into the dining room for breakfast like drunken sailors, blurry-eyed from lack of sleep and thinking harsh thoughts about me or whichever travel agent had sold them this Adventure to the 7th continent.

Leaving the dining room after breakfast, I stopped to chat with WAI travelers, wondering about the pulse of the group upon waking up to this new reality. While talking with Sally and her walking pals, Sally made a dash from the dining room in desperate search for anyplace where she might conduct her own techicolor yodeling session. Crew members standing nearby introduced her to a Polar Star tool with which many Polar Star passengers have become quite intimate – the seasickness bag, a compact plastic disc with a thin plastic tube dropping down from it into which the regurgitation is deposited.

While a staff member was finding Sally the seasickness bag however, the contagion of Sally’s yodeling triggered another minor yodeling session for me, which I conducted in my fortuitously situated cabin nearby.

Following breakfast, I had a meeting scheduled with Hannah to discuss our program of walks. En route to Reception, I grabbed a seasickness bag from one of the wall-mounted containers I now realized were situated strategically throughout the ship, and popped it into a pocket. Wendy and I talked about multiple routing changes, while I explained a bit about our group and what we hope to accomplish. Midway through the talk, Natasha, one of the ship’s managers, was showing us amazing photos on her laptop of the places we plan to walk. All of a sudden, I felt again the irresistible urge to yodel! Like a man pulling out a handkerchief to sneeze, I reached into my pocket, pulled out my handy dandy seasickness bag, politely told Wendy, “Excuse me, I think I’m going to lose it,” and stepped outside to deposit my breakfast into the bag – all of my breakfast!

So far, we’re having a great time on our way to Antarctica!!

Walkers arrived in Argentina on Dec 6 for the Buenos Aires & the End of the World Pre-tour and headed off for a Christmas in Antarctica on Dec 9!

No, thankfully we didn’t experience any rain in the capital of Argentina during our pretour. In fact, yesterday was a mild, sunny 70 degrees in Buenos Aires! What we did encounter was a plethora of stray felines and well-managed canines. We started our walk in the botanical gardens, repository for unwanted cats who nevertheless were lounging contentedly in the morning sun. They appear quite comfortable with handouts from sympathetic locals and whatever prey their hunting skills produce, and seem to thrive in the verdant, green surroundings of both the botanical gardens and amazing Recoleta Cemetery. They also displayed the typical Garfield-like trait of feline nonchalance and control of their environment – we saw no dogs in the gardens.

Soon after we left the gardens, however, we began to see professional dog walkers, a phenomenon I’ve not yet encountered in my travels. Buenos Aires is a lovely South American city, probably the prettiest and most orderly of Latin American cities I’ve visited, appropriately nicknamed the “Paris of South America.” But I have to admit that one of the more entertaining and unexpected aspects of my visit was the rather pedestrian activity of watching dog walkers.

Nicolas, our guide, explained that during the financial crisis of 2002, when Argentina devalued its currency and initiated the largest debt default in history, people were desperate for work. Walking dogs for employed apartment dwellers developed into a uniquely Argentine occupation, at least on the scale we witnessed!

We aren’t talking about a couple of dogs on a lead. All over the more affluent northern part of the city, we encountered dogs of all sizes, shapes, colors, and breeds, mostly purebreds, dutifully trooping along beside their walkers in bunches of 6 to 8 to 10! Walkers are paid by the month and charge a VIP premium for limiting the size of their walking “pack”. In the numerous green plazas, the walkers gather to let the dogs play and socialize. We were never far from the barking of dogs, but when they were on a leash, they were amazingly cooperative and compliant.

The most proficient dog walker we encountered was trudging down the sidewalks of Palermo neighborhood with 14 canines in tow!! The only problem we witnessed unfolded when she arrived with her 14 dogs at a tree by an intersection. The light forced her to stop, and her dogs were all intent on using the limited tree trunk circumference to make their mark on Palermo. Laughing as we watched the struggle for available tree bark, we had to admit a certain empathy, especially from the women in the group, since we’ve all had similar experiences at our human comfort stops during our Adventures!

Walkers arrived in Argentina on Dec 6 for the Buenos Aires & the End of the World Pre-tour and they headed off for a Christmas in Antarctica on Dec 9!

Posted 12/14/09