Humpback Paradise

We had a group of 14 Ukrainians on board. They are going to be dropped off at Vernadsky station today. They are replacing the current crew of the station. They are very excited. The station was previously owned by the British under the name of Faraday station. They handed it over to Ukraine in what I thought was its sole act of international goodwill. However, I later discovered that the Antarctic Treaty requires the owner of abandoned stations to remove them, and Britain wanted to abandon Faraday. Luckily for them Ukraine wanted to build a station so it was win-win situation rather than goodwill.

After the heaving of Drakes passage and the strong winds of the sub-antarctic convergence, we encountered the calmer waters approaching and navigating the Lemaire channel.

I had been on the flying bridge since dawn. It was calm, very cold, and the light was painting the clouds in many artistic ways. Even with 400 photos, I was unable to capture an image that reflected the beauty.

I managed to find time to grab a banana to take back to the flying bridge, but didn’t find a moment to eat it for the next 2 hours. Whales, ice-bergs, sea birds and tall peaks were all squeezed into this narrow channel paradise.

A pair of whales dead ahead. A flurry of terns to port. A flight of penguins to starboard, oh and another whale right here. And our first bit of blue sky since departure day.

Shortly after leaving the channel, an excited Ukrainian was pointing furiously ahead and screaming Vernadsky, that’s Vernadsky station! It’s where he is about to spend the next 12 months. The station is no Antarctic Ibiza. No badminton stadium like at the Great Wall of China Base. There is a room with a big punching bag in it. These huts look “serious”, except for the very jovial peace signs painted everywhere. And the new church they just completed from the Walmart flat-pack we delivered from the Chinese base.

In the afternoon was a zodiac visit to Rocky point to admire the penguins. Only 10 minutes had passed before we were back in the zodiacs. Humpbacks had been spotted.

The humpbacks were feeding, sometimes lunging to the surface with mouths wide open. The screams of another million Krill crying out could be felt in the force. There pods of joyous humpbacks and terrified Krill everywhere.

I got a few out of focus tail shots.

After two hours of enjoying humpbacks in their own paradise we headed back to the ship. The whales, having noticed we had turned our cameras off, then started breaching for the first time. Or was that jumping for joy that their paradise was all theirs once again.