Day 6 - LeMaire and the Collision Course

They weren’t kidding with the 6am wake-up announcement!  Apparently the LeMaire Channel is a trip highlight noted for its scenery.  It is the farthest South we will be going and thus (because it is colder) there is some level of concern about what to expect ice-wise.  The satellite pictures from a few days back show that there is still a fair amount of sea ice (when the salt water sea freezes vs. when chunks of fresh water ice break off from a glacier), but the captain decided it is worth checking out to see what it looks like today.

Not ones to miss anything, we rolled out of bed (on purpose this time) suited up in our cold weather gear, packed on our cameras, and headed to the front of the ship.  We had an unusually clear day with spots of blue sky.  The scenery (not to reuse the same word over and over) was breathtaking.  The channel is relatively narrow and is lined with craggy black snow-covered mountains.  Since the sky is mostly white today, the mountains really stand out against the snow.  Add to that the misty low hanging clouds and the views are surreal. 

I think the coolest thing about this passage is the ice.  As we headed up the channel, we were surrounded by more icebergs and sea ice than anywhere we’ve been so far.  We wondered if there would be wildlife in this area and much to our amusement, there are penguins all over the place – we often see them in groups “porpoising” around the ship – basically jumping in and out of the water.  We also saw some seals lounging on icebergs.  As the sea ice is generally flat, it makes for a good landing spot for all critters around here and you often see footprints all over them, confirming that there is a fair amount of wildlife in the area.

The goal was to get to the Southern end of the channel and do our morning zodiac excursion, but as we continued South and the ice became thicker, the captain and excursion leader determined that the ice plus the strong current would not make for a safe excursion.  So, a decision was made to about face and head back up the channel to get to less “chunky” waters.  As we plowed through the sea ice and bergs, it amazed me how, for the most part, they had very little impact on the ship – we literally just rolled right over them!  Of course, the ship does have some fancy steel reinforced hull for just this scenario, but it was still odd to just chug right through the ice.  Every now and then, though, we got a little too confident and you could feel a decent “oops” hit.

Damon, who is still battling a cold, headed back to sleep and I decided to hang out on the bow where I struck up a conversation with one of the staff.  I asked him how many times he had been up and down the channel and he said 47, so basically, he has some experience.  As we were chatting, the ship changed course and started heading to the left – one would assume it was to avoid something large, but I didn’t see anything in our path.  Again, we are in a narrow channel and had been driving a straight path up the middle the entire time thus far.

I kept looking at the mountain face that was dead ahead in our path and then looking at him, and back and forth.  He looked at the mountain and said “huh” and then looked up at the bridge to see if it had been overtaken by a suicidal nut case intending to ram us.  We continued to head toward the rock face and at one point, we started to get (in my opinion) unusually close.  I said, “does this seem strange to you” and he said “yes, this seems a bit strange”.  He was definitely not completely relaxed with our current course.  (Note the likely madman on the bridge).

I started to plan my escape route to avoid sure death by mountain.  Run back to cabin and get Damon, grab our immersion suits (you can survive for a week in frigid water) and run to the back of the ship so we will be the last ones to feel the impact.  Okay, so I can be a bit dramatic.  But all these other suckers were just standing around watching an obviously impending impact without doing anything.  I was prepared. 

I saw the staff guy looking around the ship to see what we were avoiding and he kept looking up at the bridge.  Not gonna say he was nervous, but he was not 100% not nervous either.  Eventually we changed course back to the middle of the channel.  Crisis averted.  I immediately ran to the back of the ship to get a picture of our wake so I could show Damon our close call since he missed it and all.  If you look closely, you can see the dark s-shaped line cleared of ice, which was our path toward doom.

As I write this blog post (by the way, this is my view),  

an announcement just came on that may be worse than a head-on collision with a mountain.  The Polar Plunge.  This is my nightmare.  I’m 99.9% certain that I will not do it and even peer pressure will not change my mind.  I hate being cold in general and the thought of jumping into arctic frozen waters “for fun” does not seem awesome to me.  At all.  Call me a wimp, but remember that I have no problem jumping of a 120’ bridge on the end of a bungy into a river.  It is just the heart-stopping cold!  For the first time on this vacation, I’m officially caught up on the blog, so I think I will retreat to the cabin for, what else, a little nap.

By lunchtime, I think many people had headed to their cabins to relax since our morning excursion had been canceled, so the crew blackmailed us back outside by serving hamburgers and hot dogs on the deck.  It was just a bit chilly outside, so had to eat my burger with mittens on.  There were multiple announcements about the Polar Plunge, but the wind and current were too strong, so it was all put on hold.  Here’s to selfishly hoping it is canceled.

By 2pm, we had arrived at our afternoon landing location – it was an Argentine research base – and it was on the continent (versus an island), that means two landings on the continent!  Half the group went to the base while the other went on a zodiac cruise.  There were humpbacks in the area so we stayed and watched those from a distance. 

Eventually our zodiac driver pulled us away from the ever-entertaining whales to go find seals or glaciers, so we took a 10-minute zodiac cruise full speed on open water.  It was COLD!  We couldn’t find anything and people were starting to get a little disappointed because we all wanted to watch the whales.  We stopped in an area where whales had been spotted and within 2 minutes, a huge humpback breaches right in front of us.  Everyone whipped out the cameras and it breached again.  This is a cool thing because the whales are in feed mode right now and breaching is typically only a mating activity, which they do not do in Antarctica.  So that made the whole zodiac trip worth it!

Our second stop was the landing by the base –

we wandered around looking at more penguins which, while they stink something awful, are still fun to watch waddle around.  We got to hike up a hill,

which, when you are not moving on a ship most of the day, actually feels really good.  And there are always amazing views from higher up!  One other interesting thing about this area is that while we are so used to seeing nothing but whites and grays, for some reason, moss grows on the base.  One of our naturalists was super excited to show us a tuft of grass (the only one on the island) growing in the moss.  And, if that wasn't exciting enough, he dug around until he located a "flightless midge" - the ONLY insect that exists in Antarctica.

Everyone got back to the ship around 5:30 or 6, and that was when they made the plunge announcement.  Okay, I’m a wuss.  I could not do it.  Damon has been sick and opted not to turn a head cold into pneumonia.  And who am I to make him feel bad by jumping without him?  I selflessly opted to stand by my man and not do the plunge (if he reads this, okay, truth – no freaking way I was jumping whether he was sick or not).  Will I regret it?  Probably.  But I’m cold enough on land, no need to be dunking myself in frigid waters.  They basically opened the two areas on a lower deck where we usually load the zodiacs.  Everyone who jumped was tied to a rope, you know, just in case… and they were in and out of the water in about 10 seconds flat.  I probably could have done it, but, well.  I didn’t.  If I need to convince myself further, let us go back to our first day on the ship when we spent a solid hour learning about ship safety and all the reasons NOT to go in the water, and how to get out of the water as quickly as possible.  Because cold arctic water is bad!

We had our evening recap where we learned plans for tomorrow (our last day, sob) plus expected weather on the 2-day trip back to Ushuaia.  It looks like we are going to have one okay day and one horrible day.  Ahh, doubling down on the Drake Shake.  We’ve reapplied our Scop patches and are ready to face whatever the Drake wants to throw at us.