18 dec. 2023 - Day 7 - Yalour Islands and Lemaire Channel - 65°12.2’S / 64°08.4’W
Morning: Lectures
The morning started with great Antarctic weather. Wind-speeds of 50 knots (92.6 Km/h) raced across the land and sea. So we had to go to an alternative landing location.
We sailed to the Valour Islands and in the meantime two members of the expedition staff, Chloe and Pierre, gave presentations about their area’s of expertise or interest. This meant we got a very amusing story from Chloe about the krill that lives in the ocean and is a very important element on the food chain in Antarctica. Krill is very much like a shrimp, although they aren’t really related. They look mostly the same but apparently taste awfully (no, I have not tried one myself).
After the lecture about krill Pierre gave a presentation about Humpback whales. Just at that moment three Humpback whales decided to show up near the ship. So we were all a bit distracted and went out to go whale-watching. They are amazing creatures and surprisingly graceful and nimble when they come up for air and dive back down again. Like most creatures on Antarctica they were unphased by the ship and were just lazily going about their business. Eating the aforementioned krill in this case. Just like the day before with the orca’s all my fellow passengers were on the front-deck of the ship admiring and taking pictures of the whales. Enthusiastically moving from port-side to starboard when a whale was spotted.
The lecture was delayed until a later time. After the lunch we spotted even more whales.
Afternoon: Visiting Adelie penguins
In the afternoon we dropped anchor at the Yalour Islands. Since there is a limit on the number of people that may land there at the same time we were split in groups. We were in the second group to go, so we started with another lecture about the birds on Antarctica. Although I like birds as much as any other person, this was a great time to relax and manage all the photo’s I had taken until now. Sitting in the bar with some hot chocolate milk while copying all my photo’s to my laptop was actually a nice change of pace for a bit. I also took the time to write a bit in this journal.
Then it was our time to visit the islands. The Yalour Islands host a few Adélie penguin communities. These penguins are just nuts.
Not only do they have the funniest looking googly-eyes. They mostly go around sliding on their bellies. Of course a great way to get over the snow, but they look ridiculous flapping and flopping about. It is just hilarious.
What was also very clear was that the animals on Antarctica are not used to humans and/or predators. Even with quite a group of people around they just walk around going about their business. They don’t really seem to mind their being ogled by 50 people. They create paths through the snow to easier go from their next to the water. We were told to keep these “penguin highways” clear to not disturb them but aside from those they just walk where they want to go, even if that is toward a group of humans.
Biggest threat: Bird-flu
One of the biggest threats to the penguin colonies currently is bird-flu. This disease has been carried all over the world by migrating birds and has even reached Antarctica now. Since penguin colonies are quite packed an infection has disastrous consequences.
We as visitors were a big risk since we travelled between colonies and could cary an infection as well. This wouldn’t harm us since the virus doesn’t affect humans but could potentially wipe out whole colonies of penguins. One of biggest risk is contact with bird-droppings. This is how most of the infection gets around. To prevent us from cross-infecting the different locations we visited some very strict rules were implemented:
- Don’t get within five meters of most penguins, or even 10 meters from some colonies that were more at risk.
- Don’t let anything touch the ground.
- Don’t crouch because that could mean your coat or clothing touches the soles of your shoes or the ground.
- Everything that touches the ground, like the soles of your shoe, had to be disinfected before you went ashore and after you came back.