Brown Bluff and Antarctic Sound.
This was a day of ice! Early this morning, the National Geographic Explorer arrived off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, near a place called Brown Bluff. It gets its name from the spectacular, rust-colored cliff, which is the exposed face of a volcanic structure that rises to 2,225 feet (675 m) above sea level. This bluff is composed of countless gray, tan, yellow, red, and brown layers of ash that were laid down by violent volcanic eruptions over millions of years, but stopped perhaps a million years ago. Its appearance is reminiscent of the mesas and buttes in the American West. However, in this case the rock is surrounded by an unimaginably huge ice sheet that covers most of the peninsula. Brown Bluff is essentially standing firm against the ever-advancing ice and splitting it as it moves toward the sea, thus creating a small, protected, ice-free shoreline for the penguins to use as a breeding site. In addition, we encountered numerous male Antarctic fur seals lounging about on the shoreline and nearby ice floes. Apart from this rocky oasis, as far as one could see in either direction is the ice edge of the Antarctic ice sheet…calving off myriad icebergs of amazing shapes (Figure A).
Our landing this morning gave us a chance to see some very interesting behavior among the penguins, too. Mostly, we saw chicks that were molting out of their down coverings into their juvenal plumage. This indicated to us that they were nearly fledged and would soon be on their own in what we learned is a very dangerous world…for fledgling penguins, that is. In fact, many of them had already been abandoned by their parents and were now literally on their own, but didn’t yet know it. However, a few adults came ashore while we were here to give some of the last feedings of krill to some of the younger chicks. We witnessed one group of juveniles make their very first venture into the sea and they were quickly met by a leopard seal on the prowl. The penguins clearly showed their ineptness in the water as they splashed about, squawking, and the result with the leopard seal was pretty much what we expected…and not very sporting. The biggest surprise in store for us here, however, was witnessing two fur seals approach the group of juveniles and each one casually grab a young penguin. One fur seal quickly dispatched its prey and thrashed it inside-out (just like a leopard seal) and ate some of it, but the other fur seal abandoned its prey, leaving it mortally wounded and flopping helplessly at the surface.
The rest of the day was spent cruising in Antarctic Sound among the fantastic tabular bergs, icebergs, bergy bits, growlers, and ice floes. We affectionately refer to this area as Iceberg Alley, because it is a place where huge pieces of ice drift in on the currents and become grounded, thereby trapping them for our pleasure and enjoyment. The perfect weather conditions, including wonderful reflections of the ice, only added to the overall experience. A lot of photography was accomplished this afternoon, to say the least. In fact, it was difficult trying to decide on a particular iceberg or tabular berg to photograph and include in this Daily Expedition Report…until we found the Ice Castle! See Figure B.
