Enterprise Islands / Cuverville Island / Paradise Harbor
Our morning began in the company of whales. On an overcast day steaming south along the west coast of the Antarctic peninsula the hum of activity started particularly early aboard National Geographic Explorer. At 5:30 am we were roused by a gentle voice encouraging us to come out on deck and watch humpback behavior at its best. With coffees in hand a couple dozen diehards emerged from the ships bowels in time to see 6-7 humpbacks aggressively feeding on unseen life. With lunges, tail lobs, breaching and very shallow dives there was plenty of activity to perk up the onlookers.
With the day off to a good start we left our hungry friends and continued south to a small grouping of islands named Enterprise. Situated in the middle of the Gerlache Straight these islands get their name for the efficient harvesting of the very animals we began our day with. For the early part of the 19th century these islands provided safe harbor for the factory whaling ships that spent their summers on the hunt. To solidify the whaling presence we spent the morning in Zodiacs touring the island’s snow capped landscape and even approached a half sunken whaling vessel named the Gobernoren. Caught ablaze in 1915, this hulking mass of rusting metal now hosts a small colony of Antarctic terns as well as relics of the machinery needed to make their voyage down here an economic reality.
Pushing even further south in the afternoon we made a landing on a small rock named Cuverville Island. Home to thousands of Gentoo penguins and surrounded by an armada of grounded icebergs this place allowed us to take life in as might a nesting penguin — by clambering a few hundred feet up to the rocky outcroppings these birds call home. No doubt resembling penguins on our way up we found our own snow-free perches to take in the world from above. Peering down from our new vantage point we watched icebergs roll, Zodiacs pinball between ship and shore, kayakers spiral around obstacles and the sun coat the surrounding mountains like honey on ice cream.
To finish the day we poked our bow into an aptly named speck on the chart named Paradise Harbor. With filtered evening light and a vertical landscape of mountains dripping with ice we spent the final hours of the day drifting through this surreal landscape whispering to ourselves… “how can we be so lucky??”
