Antarctic Sound / Weddell Sea
Today we entered a seascape some have compared to their visions of heaven. While many a cold, hungry, stranded 19th century explorer may not share this opinion, our time in the fabled Weddell Sea was enough to make most mortals wonder, is this heaven!? Awoken by a 5:30am beam of sun upon my face the day started early and intensified quickly. Within an hour of the official wake-up call our southern progress, through a labyrinth of tabular icebergs, came to a satisfying standstill as we floated face to face not only with a frozen sea-ice barrier but two well-fed Emperor penguins (and yes, by well fed I mean fat!). Understandably wary of our own size they waddled off without much fanfare but we were quick to spot 6 additional, equally healthy birds of the same species. While these were no more interested in us than the first two, we soon found yet another grouping of birds, this time cozied up next to a matching number of Adelie penguins for scale. At about 6 times their weight and nearly twice their size the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) towers over most every other penguin on earth, especially it’s fellow ice dependent brethren, the Adelie.
With more emperor penguins sighted than we could have ever hoped for (well over a dozen) we decided to make like a penguin and test the ice. With the horsepower of the National Geographic Explorer at our stern, the captain nosed her bow into the soft edge of the sea-ice barrier until a sufficient amount of ice surrounded the ship. Then, with a few staff and crew as guinea pigs, poking and prodding the ice for weakness, we opened the side-gate and emerged into a world of ice, snow, wind, sun and blinding whiteness that one might indeed confuse for a place of eternal rest. For a blissful two hours all 141+ of us strolled around the frozen ocean surface at 46 degrees south latitude, in the presence of emperor, Adelie and Gentoo penguins, a handful of crabeater seals, a multitude of tabular bergs (frozen into the ice like almonds in a chocolate bar) and, in truly divine fashion, a multitude of pure white snow petrels swooping overhead throughout the outing.
Stunned by the stark, white beauty of it all we stumbled back aboard to set course north again for the remainder of what this southern moonscape will unveil. Back through the northern stretches of the Weddell Sea we enjoyed an afternoon with the wind at our backs, the sun on our shoulders and a world of ice on the horizon. I, for one, could not dream of another place I would rather be!
