Danger Island

There's a first time for everything and I admit I was an "Ice Virgin."

Leaving Elephant Island we pushed through pack ice to reach an island group called the Danger Islands. I was, and am, fascinated by icebergs. As a child I watched the 1953 movie "Titanic" with Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwick, Robert Wagner, Richard Basehart and other lesser known stars. From that movie, I learned that ... icebergs kill ships. Yet here we were pushing through the pack ice and among icebergs in our ice-hardened MS Endeavour. The sight was simply too beautiful to devote brain cycles to worrying about icebergs killing ships. These islands are seldom visited and I like to think what we saw was unique.

These photos were taken in February, 2006 with a Nikon D200.

As we moved slowly through the ice-laden sea, this particular iceberg came to represent the Danger Islands for me. Peeking up mysteriously from the sea, it seemed to say, "Beware. I'm watching you. Do not disturb."
Pack ice forms when the sea freezes. When the weather warms, it breaks up into wide flat sheets a few feet (or meters depending on the cold) thick. Pushing through it is not that big a deal. But the ice is powerful. Getting your boat caught while it's freezing risks crushing the hull of your boat. It's summer here, there is no real risk.
The taller icebergs had a different origin. Mostly they have fallen from the face of glaciers. They're tall, and are subject to erosion from wind and waves. For me, these are the most fascinating because of the shapes they form. We saw huge flat icebergs you could land a 747 on. We saw mini-bergs you could tow around with a kayak. And we saw everything in between.

I came to understand that icebergs are also dangerous. As they melt and are eroded, their center of gravity changes constantly. Finally, the ice berg becomes unstable and a push from wind or wave will cause it to roll over and seek a new truce between gravity and buoyancy. Besides "killing ships" they will upset a zodiac or kayak that ventures to close and joins the rollover adventure.
As we cleared the ice, we approached Heroina Island. A naturalist aboard our ship told us that there are 1,000,000 nesting pairs of Adelie penguins here. I was unprepared for the stamina of penguins. The best nesting sites are high up, where the ice melts first, and eggs can be laid and chicks hatched in time to give them their best shot at survival. Here you will see penguins nesting very high up in the rocks.
Another thing I was unprepared for was the agility of penguins as they wander around on land. Here is a mini "March of the Penguins" as they return from the sea to feed their young. They march up and over sizeable rocks. They may climb literally 1,500 feet above sea level to reach their nest and to feed their young. Then they return to the sea to feed and repeat the cycle.
One of the naturalists that accompanied us told us with tongue in cheek, that there were two kinds of penguins, "Black ones walking away from you, and white ones walking toward you." And it's true to a degree. The greater truth is that we saw four separate and distinct species of penguins. This adult Adelie penguin is about 2 feet tall. It is distinguished by a black head and the light circle around it's eye. Penguins have no natural land-based predators. Since humans walk on land, we are no apparent threat. If I simply sat down and waited, they would walk up to and around me. It was as if I were no more interesting to them than a rock.
Another thing that I was unprepared for was that ice is a real part of the environment. What seems transient to me, what could melt and leave me afloat in an ice cold sea, was just as real and solid to seals and penguins as land would be to me. Need a place to rest, choose a convenient piece of ice. If it's gone tomorrow, no worries, just choose another. Ice, in general, is a real and permanent part of the environment. A specific, unique piece of ice, something to be possessed or to bond with, is not. Whack on the side of the head!

For my money, the seals are the most engagingly attractive animals of the Antarctic. I could not see their activity under water, but above water they seem to simply lay around and look cute. This is a Weddell seal. Other kinds of seals (fur seals or leopard seals for example) may have more of an attitude. But they are all cute, and docile in appearance.
"Take me home, okay?"