Of penguins and men

Curious Gentoo penguin....

Charcot in January 1909:

"An Adelie penguin jumped on the ice, holding in its beak a very big fish. Boland seized on it, and the fish, of a kind new to us, is now in a bottle; but the easily comprehensible anger of the poor penguin was comic. In a perfect fury it accompanied the robber right back to the ship, protesting energetically."

Charcot in 1909:

"We spent a good hour amusing ourselves with a penguin which refused to leave us. We stuck on his head now a cap, now a mitten, and nothing could have been funnier than this grotesquely muffled creature running along the snow and trying to free himself. What was most curious, he seemed himself to be delighted with the game, coming back to us, stretching out his head, and evincing great satisfaction."

Sorry, didn's mean to disturb you....

Sheathbill picking at the tail of a sea leopard....

What a hypochondriac....

Strangers in a strange world....

who dares to disturb my afternoon nap?

Even so seals are so big, your tend to overlook them, when you are wandering around lost in your thoughts or concentrating on your photos. They do no move and have the same colour as the rocks....

Giants and dwarfs

The Southern Elephant seal is the world's biggest seal. Males can grow to 3.5 tons and 5 m in length. They can dive for 2 hours and up to 1.5 km deep

Contemplating the limits of life....

Whale vertebrate and Gentoo penguin...

Not only penguins are birds.....

Skuas

and this one, which joined us as a passenger for a while, we called "Barbara"
(look at the feet)

and a young Skua looking for its mama....

In 1908, Charcot wrote:

"Very often, almost every time we land, we have to put up with the attacks of the megalestris, and its sharp beak and strong flight justify fear"

Cape petrels....

and Albatrosses seems to never rest. They always fly and yet they barely move a wing

a wandering albatross - using the thermic uplift a wave can give him

Blue eyed shags
breeding at the few places which are not covered by ice

What a beauty am I....

Its beauty almost led to the Antarctic fur seal's extinction

During the 1800s, sealers haunted the beaches of the South Shetlands. On the southwest side of Greenwich Island, there is a harbour called Yankee Harbour. As early as 1820, the harbour was an important anchorage to sealers (who called it Hospital Cove). A rusty old tripod is still there. A guy called William Smith came to the South Shetlands for the fifth time in 1820-1821, his two vessels alone took over 60,000 fur seal skins. By the end of 1821, the fur seals were almost completely gone

Almost gone....

Humpback whales can grow up to 17.5 meters and weigh up to 40 tons. They can consume one ton of krill a day.

Seeing whales from close by is rather rare, but in 1908 Charcot wrote:

"About us, an innumerable quantity of balaenopterus are plunging"

Ring of fire....

Deception Island is a submerged volcano with a caldera of about 4 nautical miles in diameter. Ships can enter through a narrow passage of a couple of hunderd meters wide. In the passage is Raven Rock, a submerged rock needle - the wreck of the whaling ship "Southern hunter" hitting the rock in 1957 still lies on the southern side of the entrance and bears testimony of the danger. This recently did not prevent a cruise ship to hit it as well.....

The water in the crater is at times warm enough to swim... at least it is warm enough for this red seaweed. 1921, it is said that the water in the crater was so hot that the paint was burnt off the ships anchored in the caldera The rim of the crater apparently is composed of alternate layers of ice and ashes

It seems that a warm mud flow melted away part of this glacier before reaching the sea

The water of the falls in this picture disappear behind the ice and reappear further down in the rim
It appears that the volcanic bombs lying around on the rim are decaying rather fast....
The rotting rocks of Deception Island...

Traces.... the whaling station at Deception Island

The first people to come to Antarctica were not the explorers, but sealers and whalers. People like Shackleton and Charcot were dependant on their advice and help. They also were provided coal and supplies at their stations.

One of the stations was at Deception Island. The remainders are still there.

The whalers almost succeeded to extinct part of the whale population. Species like the southern right whale were easy to hunt. They stay on the surface for a long time, do not flee and, after being killed, float conveniently on the surface until being dismantled.

In 1912/13, 12 floating factory ships, 27 catcher boats and one shore based factory operated in the whaling station at Foster's port in the crater of Deception Island and processed 5000 whales in one season
Charcot left a comment in 1908: "We find two three masters and two steam vessels, surrounded by several little steam catchers, this fleet belonging to three different companies. Pieces of whale float about on all sides, and bodies in the process of being cut up or waiting for their turn alongside the various boats. The smell was unbearable"

The station also boiled the reaminders of the whale to extract the last drop of oil. In the tanks, whale oil and fuel were stored.

Lowell Thomas writes in his Biography of Hubert Wilkins: "New Years eve was celebrated with games, eating, drinking and - a lot of gunfire. Two drunk whalers climbed atop a pair of sperm whales on the flensing plan awaiting processing. The whales had been cooking themselves from the heat of the blood inside their bodies and were swollen with gas...

One whaler thrust his long knife inside this veritale whale balloon. It promptly exploded, hurling both men into the harbor, where they had to be rescued by some of the view sober observers."

After 1941, Britain, Chile and Argentina started a fight over Deception Island. The Island chaged sides several times until the Brits finally built Base B in 1943

After the war, British Marines were stationed here, and as an response, the Argentinean President visited.

Today, Argentina and Spain have a station here, whereas the Chilean station was washed away by an volcanic explosion. The station are mostly abandoned.

The inside of the buildings is reconquered by ice and snow....

45 men were buried in the station's cemetery (38 Norwegians, 3 Swedes, one Briton, one Chilean, one Russian and one of unknown origin), but the cemetery was buried in a 1969 eruption. Only a view graves were restored.

The remainder of a water boats used to bring water to the station