This morning served as a historic moment for many people aboard National Geographic Explorer. Phase 3 of our Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and Antarctic Peninsula voyage began on the continent proper. Not all landfall made on the Antarctic peninsula is connected to the mainland due to the thousands of tiny islands strung along its coastline so, today, being able to make our first stop in Antarctica at a location known as Brown Bluff offered a number of people the chance to claim their seventh continent.
The morning began very cold with the temperature in the low 20’s before wind chill was factored in. Despite the cold the beach was soon swarming with orange parkas and the waters just off shore crisscrossed with the wakes of Zodiac cruises. Two species of penguin call brown Bluff home, Adélie and gentoo, each settling into their nest sites and beginning the process of courtship, mating and even egg laying. According to two time-lapse cameras that were set up last year by the Extreme Ice Survey team, it appears the first few pair of Adélie penguins (at least those who decided to nest in front of the cameras) arrived at Brown Bluff on October 8th, offering a very useful baseline that the cameras will continue to extrapolate on as the years go by.
In the opposite direction of the colony many people struck off towards the flanks of a tidewater glacier to get a chance to walk atop its glaciated ice. Still filled in with winter snow the surface looked little different than its surroundings except for the large boulders that lined the edge—also known as a lateral moraine. With a glacier walk, penguins and, for some, a seventh continent under our belts, all before noon, we all came back aboard cold but satisfied.
The afternoon took us from the east side of the peninsula and Brown Bluff to the west side and our evening destination of Lindblad Cove. This ice-choked cove, which sits at the southern end of Charcot Bay, was named for the father of Antarctic ship-based tourism, Lars-Eric Lindblad as per the request of his son, and President & Founder of Lindblad Expeditions, Sven-Olof Lindblad. We arrived on a very windy evening under overcast skies. With large amounts of ice to work around and the unpredictable winds we spent little time here but all took a moment to tip our hats to the founder of this company and the legacy he created in the Antarctic and beyond!
