The Cosmonaut Sea
Dec. 17th, 2007 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poletopoleShip's Position at 12:00:
The Antarctic map is strewn with historical oddities. Today we are in the Cosmonaut Sea.
Brunch on the bow was a chilly event. The ship halted during the hour and a half or so that it took, and had to be repositioned midway through as the wind shifted and drove diners indoors rapidly. Some returned after the ship's change of placement was announced; still, a great deal of corned-beef hash was left over. Light snow swirled as scrambled eggs, sausages, minute steaks, the hash, and cream of wheat were served hot, and cereals, baskets of breads, and fruit were served increasingly cold. It was plainly too early in the day for beer, as the hot chocolate urn was repeatedly emptied while the mini beer keg's tender advertised its readiness to serve but found no takers.
After brunch, before the ship began moving again, a solitary Adelie penguin on the ice amused us hugely by quonking periodically. It must have been trying to locate another penguin, and the noise was amazingly loud for such a small creature. It was some distance away, toddling around on an ice floe and calling, and once it jumped in the water, swam to another ice floe, and quonked some more. I lost sight of it when the ship began moving and I will never know if it was reunited with its lost companion(s).
Looking over the edge of the ship late last night, I saw several ice floes broken by the ship's passage that were covered with penguin tracks. Even on an ice floe, a penguin prefers to follow another penguin; there were always several sets of tracks crisscrossing, not a random scattering of marks. Some were toboggan marks (sliding on the stomach), with multiple footprint sets. I have seen pairs of penguins, but not groups, on the ice as we go along. They are not a frequent sight, either. A few minke whales have been spotted in the past few days, but I've only seen one or two myself, and with whales you don't get a very good look at the animal unless it's feeling like breaching!
Half an hour after the penguin was left behind, there was a stampede to the bow as the sighting of an extremely rare Ross seal was announced on the PA. The ship had passed the seal, but turned and passed it again very slowly, at a good distance — five hundred meters, I think. The seal looked like a greyish, spotty haggis lying on the ice, but when it decided it didn't want a ship nearby and began hauling itself away, its shape was more apparent, and when it lifted its head to look back reproachfully the thick neck, pale throat, and wide mouth were plain to see. It was not using its right foreleg/flipper in humping along; possibly injured, resting. Antarctic seals' coloring and patterns (spots or solids) can vary enormously, and the only way to identify them positively is to get a clear view of the head, which this seal gave us, several times. A quarter hour of that and the ship moved away, not to harass the seal too much. Now everyone has seen it, including me, and there will be no doubt that other seals are not Ross seals. Yet another animal photographed running away...
We may arrive tomorrow at Riiser-Larsen peninsula and visit an emperor penguin colony. The daily program distributed tonight lists it as an "Expedition Day".
- 66°26.5' S 31°16.5' E
- Course 150°; Speed 9 kts
- Air temperature 2°C; Wind 26 kts; Direction 110°
- Weather: Cloudy; Visibility 5
- Ice Cover: 8/10
- Distance covered past 24 hours: 257.8 nautical miles
The Antarctic map is strewn with historical oddities. Today we are in the Cosmonaut Sea.
Brunch on the bow was a chilly event. The ship halted during the hour and a half or so that it took, and had to be repositioned midway through as the wind shifted and drove diners indoors rapidly. Some returned after the ship's change of placement was announced; still, a great deal of corned-beef hash was left over. Light snow swirled as scrambled eggs, sausages, minute steaks, the hash, and cream of wheat were served hot, and cereals, baskets of breads, and fruit were served increasingly cold. It was plainly too early in the day for beer, as the hot chocolate urn was repeatedly emptied while the mini beer keg's tender advertised its readiness to serve but found no takers.
After brunch, before the ship began moving again, a solitary Adelie penguin on the ice amused us hugely by quonking periodically. It must have been trying to locate another penguin, and the noise was amazingly loud for such a small creature. It was some distance away, toddling around on an ice floe and calling, and once it jumped in the water, swam to another ice floe, and quonked some more. I lost sight of it when the ship began moving and I will never know if it was reunited with its lost companion(s).
Looking over the edge of the ship late last night, I saw several ice floes broken by the ship's passage that were covered with penguin tracks. Even on an ice floe, a penguin prefers to follow another penguin; there were always several sets of tracks crisscrossing, not a random scattering of marks. Some were toboggan marks (sliding on the stomach), with multiple footprint sets. I have seen pairs of penguins, but not groups, on the ice as we go along. They are not a frequent sight, either. A few minke whales have been spotted in the past few days, but I've only seen one or two myself, and with whales you don't get a very good look at the animal unless it's feeling like breaching!
Half an hour after the penguin was left behind, there was a stampede to the bow as the sighting of an extremely rare Ross seal was announced on the PA. The ship had passed the seal, but turned and passed it again very slowly, at a good distance — five hundred meters, I think. The seal looked like a greyish, spotty haggis lying on the ice, but when it decided it didn't want a ship nearby and began hauling itself away, its shape was more apparent, and when it lifted its head to look back reproachfully the thick neck, pale throat, and wide mouth were plain to see. It was not using its right foreleg/flipper in humping along; possibly injured, resting. Antarctic seals' coloring and patterns (spots or solids) can vary enormously, and the only way to identify them positively is to get a clear view of the head, which this seal gave us, several times. A quarter hour of that and the ship moved away, not to harass the seal too much. Now everyone has seen it, including me, and there will be no doubt that other seals are not Ross seals. Yet another animal photographed running away...
We may arrive tomorrow at Riiser-Larsen peninsula and visit an emperor penguin colony. The daily program distributed tonight lists it as an "Expedition Day".
