Cruise Day 9 Neko Harbor and Cuverville Island

by Ed · February 4, 2023

Greetings, all!

Today is 12 Jan, 2023. We are gliding through ice as we enter Neko Harbor. Schalk, the expedition lead, says this is his favorite place to land!

The ice is thick in places, and icebergs are plentiful!. The glaciers are tortured with large crevasses. When the fog lifts the mountainsides are shear and stunning!

The scenery is beautiful as we quietly glide through the morning water. As we wait for the “go” for this morning’s landing in Neko Harbor we receive a report of whales in the area, and all who care are encouraged to head to the open decks. It’s raining.

I step out on our veranda for a peek, trying to not get too wet, and spot an interesting sailboat in the distance. They must have had a fun trip to get here!

Schalk reports the water to the landing site is clear, and they want to hurry to get us on shore! Schalk also announces that due to low fog they are cancelling the hike to the glacier – we won’t see anything, and that shortens the excursion to speed up the morning ops.

Since we’re in the first group to go ashore this morning we gear up right away! As we finish getting dressed the wind begins to pick up. The water is still flat, but there is a growing concern that the wind could move the ice to block our ability to return from the landing. Schalk announces the bridge is going to monitor the winds for a half hour. After an hour of waiting and watching, the excursion is scrubbed. Rats! Being first to go off this morning, I was hoping at least a few zodiacs (read that as “us”!) could make it before they stopped ops!

We peel off a few layers – it will be several hours with lunch and an early Plan & Recap briefing before the afternoon landing. The briefing is early because the Cuverville landing does not begin until 3 PM, with the last group returning to the ship at 6 PM, making a normal 6:15 Recap difficult for everyone to attend.

While we reposition to Cuverville Island we come upon a family of humpback whales with a calf! The ship slows to a full stop and Schalk announces the Captain is allowing the Deck 5 forward access to the bow of the ship to be opened for our viewing pleasure! Parka on, camera in hand, head down to Deck 5!

We step high through some hatches to get to the working bow deck – this is crew access, after all, not designed for general passenger passage. About 50 people are already there ahead of me, but there is plenty of space on the rails! I maneuver to the starboard side, and luckily the whales moved to that side! There are clearly three whales – Mom and Baby plus one. They put on a nice show with frequent blows and lots of tail shots! Joy tells me that after I decide to leave the whales do some spyhopping and a breach. Oh, well. Here is proof of three whales and some of tail shots – mostly Mom and Baby!

The Plan & Recap briefing is mostly about tomorrow’s plan for the South Shetland Island stops since we don’t have any recap data from this morning.

In the afternoon we arrive at Cuverville Island. The water and weather are favorable! We get the call to head to the Mud Room!

This is a slightly longer zodiac ride, with a wet landing, but a much easier rocky shore to navigate! Schalk, in the red jacket today, awaits our arrival to give us our instructions!

Gentoo penguins pepper the rocky shore line, the snowy trails, and the rookeries. It is estimated about 2000 Gentoos live here.

Some penguin highways are very obvious! This is one of the best-defined I have seen so far!

Some are a little less obvious, but the tracks are clear. Someone definitely violated the rule of not walking on the penguin highways!

This little fellow acknowledges me as I wait for him to pass!

Farther up the trail I spot a broken egg near the trail. This is further proof of the lack of viability of eggs when winter storms last too long. The ornithologist suspects a skua stole the egg and dropped it here. Discovering no chick it was abandoned, and another bird such as a kelp gull consumed the remaining contents. In all, I found three of these eggs today. Sad.

On the way to the major rookery the Silver Cloud can be seen at anchor.

After a grueling walk around a peak, over very rugged and slippery rocks made more treacherous by slippery and stinky penguin poop, we arrive at this view of the extensive rookery on the island!

We are entertained by penguins along this ridge taking turns honking. This is supposedly a territorial and mating behavior.

Heading back to catch a zodiac back to the ship, we see the bay with another zodiac coming in.

There is a patch of snow that the penguins appear to the playing in! It looks like they are jumping in deep snow, huh?

The ride back to the ship is the roughest we’ve had, with the wind beginning to whip up the waves! The snow begins falling as we head in. We’re among the first coming back to the ship, so the rest of the people may have more snow, both ways, and rougher waves than we have!

We take this opportunity to go to the 4 o’clock high tea for the first time on the ship! There are sweets on the top tier, sandwiches in the center, and cakes and cookies on the bottom. Plus, they gave us a pair of scones with clotted cream and jelly! The little blue hourglass-shaped device is a tea timer! When the dark blue is all in the top the tea in the pots has adequately steeped!