Ryan's Journal

Probably could have slept the entire day today, but stumbled out of bed at eight and spent the majority of the day on deck watching for birds, whales and dolphins. The whales disappointed, but my dolphin spotting prowess continues, and the bird watchers were busy teaching me the names of the greater shearwaters (“the pretty, small bird”), soft plumaged petrels (“fly like they’re on crack”), and diving petrels (“the flying potato birds”). The evening hour found people in the forward lounge telling stories that included childhoods spent making oxygen-acetylene bombs (“a balloon of oxygen makes a neat fireball, a balloon of acetylene does too, but the mixture is just awesome“), Rod dusting off slides using an enema ball (“I purchased this with a four pound block of cheese, and got a lot of weird looks from the checkout girl”), and some reminiscing about Rod’s high fiber training methods. Two more days until we arrive at South Georgia for a week of beauty, wonder, and further sleep deprivation.

Steeple Jason Island is one of the highlights of this trip, provided there is good enough weather to land there. Luckily this year the forecast cooperated, although due to an incoming storm we had to wake up at 4:30 AM for a 5:00 AM landing. Having agreed to help out with the difficult landing I spent an hour onshore assisting people up the slick rocks, and then sat for five hours with 100,000 pairs (that’s 200,000 total for the mathematically challenged) of black-browed albatross, the second-largest albatross colony in the world. The place is magical — albatross have an aura of tranquility that permeates the entire place.

When finally I tore myself from the albatross it was to struggle up the steep saddle in the center of the island, on top of which I found Rod and Marlene sitting with several caracara, which are curious hawk-like birds. The birds on this island are notorious for stealing things from people, and anyone who falls asleep is likely to wake up with a handful of the birds standing around them. When coming down the mountain I passed within only a few feet of several of the birds, and the only response from them was a curious head turn — several even hopped along behind me for a bit.

After departing Steeple at 2:00 PM I debated trying to catch up on sleep, but instead joined Rod and Jim on the deck to watch for birds and other animals. My tired eyes were playing tricks on me, and after mistakenly identifying a distant albatross (big white bird) as a floating penguin (tiny black bird) I was so ridiculed that it seemed no salvation was possible. Luckily, after passing through miles of water stained red by millions of baby squid I started spotting dolphin after dolphin, many of which were leaping several feet out of the water in our bow wave and wake. By the time the day ended not only was my reputation restored, but I’ve now been given the dubious distinction of having the best eyes of any non-birder Rod has ever met, and honor which will surely be rescinded when I make my next gross misidentification.

Tons of hiking this morning at West Point Island, and tons of photography this afternoon at Carcass Island. The morning’s landing offered a rockhopper and black-browed albatross rookery, but what was more interesting to me were the grassy, mossy, licheny (my word, just made it up) hills that made up the terrain. After the relatively easy walk to the colony, the hike up a neighboring hill kicked my butt, revealing why Aaron has recently nicknamed me “the Meatball”. The top offered amazing views, including that of a raft of hundreds of king cormorants floating together on the water. When one of these birds would dive other nearby birds would follow, starting an amazing ripple through all of the other birds. It was a cool effect, and was repeated in reverse each time the birds surfaced. After descending the hill I immediately ascended the hill on the other side of the colony, and returned to the ship a tired man.

After helping out with the unloading of zodiacs the afternoon stop on Carcass Island offered the chance to hang out with magellanic penguins, which are burrowing penguins that seem to me to always be a bit paranoid. A highlight of the day came when, after sitting with a group of them for a long, long time, one had finally gotten comfortable enough to drift off to sleep while another was poking his head out of a burrow five feet away. In addition, there were large groups of nesting skuas; normally a nesting skua will spot me from a long distance away and begin mercilessly attacking, but for whatever reason the skuas on this island were letting people approach to within only a few yards with absolutely no signs of distress. Tomorrow is a 5:00 AM landing on Steeple Jason Island, with the hopes that we’ll beat a storm that is barrelling towards us out of the Drake.

The trip’s first landing came with surprisingly strong winds and rough seas, and as a result I was recruited by the staff to help out. Having been informed of my duties less than a minute before boarding a zodiac I had only my hiking boots and gaiters on, and as a result of time standing in the ocean catching boats spent much of the day with very wet feet. It was a great day though — due to the lousy weather I put my camera away and headed off for a hike around the island. The hike started with a climb up a hill that offered terrific island views, followed by navigation through a skua nesting area (they attack), then some relaxing with two caracaras that were sitting a few feet away, and finally a half hour on a five hundred foot high cliff watching albatross hover on the wind only feet away. Rod Planck showed up on the horizon shortly thereafter, so he and I set off for a long hike along the cliffs, discovering some absolutely incredible scenery and amazing albatross and fur seal colonies along the way. One of the requests the Cheesemans made on the trip was that you always tell someone where you’re going when hiking, and when it occurred to me that I had only told Rod where I was headed, and that he had only told his hiking plans to me, we set off back towards the landing area. Skuas divebombed us for a bit on the walk back, and caracaras watched our every move, but it was a really, really enjoyable time.

Following our trek around the island the weather began to clear up, so we made the brief walk across the island to the rockhopper colony, where we saw wave after wave of rockhopper penguin coming ashore. In addition, Tim came over to point out an albatross that was having flight issues due to the sudden lack of wind (“the poor dumb sucker has been bouncing off of rocks all day”), Rod produced a bag of his gorp (made with only the highest quality peanuts), and one of the passengers surprised us all by uttering what may be the first use of the word “peckerhead” by anyone in the world so far in the new year. Good day.

We rang in New Year’s tonight with champagne and the Fillipino staff singing Abba on karaoke, and while I may be guilty of having slipped away early (or run away…) it was still a memorable way to celebrate the holiday. Prior to the evening’s festivities today was ridiculously good for a day spent at sea. I got up a bit before seven this morning and joined Rod and Jim on the deck of the ship to see what might show up. Birds were flying around in abundance, and despite my limited mental capacity Jim managed to teach me the names of a few more.

The day’s highlight occurred during lunch when Doug came on the public address system and announced that they “might have sighted some sperm whales”. Since sperm whales typically dive for thirty minutes at a time I figured there was time to eat, but shortly thereafter an announcement was made that on closer inspection the sperm whales had morphed into a pod of eight fin whales. Fin whales are the second largest of all whales, and this group stayed with us for nearly an hour. Unfortunately, having run for the decks as soon as Doug said “fin whale” I was protected against the cold and wind by only a light thermal; luckily the adrenaline rush from having a pod of giant whales lunging out of the water as close as fifty feet away allowed me to ignore the frantic messages my body was sending about freezing. Only forty-five minutes later when the whales had departed did the effects of high winds and temperatures in the forties become fully obvious, but I probably can’t complain given that Carter was standing next to me during most of the sighting wearing nothing more than a short-sleeved shirt.

The day’s other activities included a beautiful slideshow by Rod, and my own miserable attempts at photographing birds that were flying by the boat at high speeds. If only giant petrels really were blurry in real life, or if albatrosses without heads were a common sight then I would have some great images, but sadly in the non-bizarro world I think I’ll end up deleting all of them and declaring today’s photo shoot to be practice for later in the trip.

After reminiscing with Ted over beers until 2:00 AM last night I managed to get up just after 6:00 AM and join a bus into Tierra Del Fuego National Park. I’ve really missed Rod Planck, so despite my better judgement I hopped on the bird watching bus (which Rod was leading) and spent the next couple of hours with an interesting yet highly obsessive group of folks; until you’ve sat in a field for twenty minutes with two dozen people scrutinizing every visible dot with wings for the sole purpose of discerning whether or not it’s a northern double-crested pileated thrush or the less common (and thus more exciting) southern variety, the experience would be quite difficult to describe.

After a brief bit of time back in town the Polar Star pulled anchor, and the boat slowly set off along the Beagle Channel with birds circling, penguins swimming below, and the occasional sea lion popping up to say hello. The weather was amazing and we sailed under a crimson sunset with picture-perfect clouds lining the skies. And in case it’s not obvious, I was pretty damn happy to be setting out again.

The energy level dropped considerably today during a four hour delay on the flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, with the only entertainment being a mad effort to learn the names of people in the group (at which I failed miserably). Things stayed slow until the Andes popped out of the clouds around Ushuaia, and now despite the late hour my energy level is so high that I’m bouncing off the walls, ready to run up a mountain or swim across the Beagle Channel. This will almost certainly be the last time I have internet access for the next month, but things will only get better from this point forward, and I can’t wait.

American Airlines apparently made the decision that passengers on eleven hour flights to South America need just enough legroom so that a six foot tall person can sit with circulation only partially cut off by the seat in front of them, so the trip down was a bit uncomfortable and I didn’t really sleep at all. Upon arriving in Buenos Aires I retrieved my bag, was too tired to protest when some shyster grabbed my luggage and said he’d take me to my ride (“just to help, it looks heavy”) and of course later demanded a couple bucks, and tried but failed to stay awake during the ride into the city.

Once at the hotel I set the alarm for a two hour nap, and a little over four hours later woke up and headed out to roam around. First impressions of Buenos Aires are that it’s a bit like Paris in that it is filled with beautiful old buildings and narrow streets that are quite pedestrian friendly. They really, really love the tango here, and while a blind, one-legged street performer playing three instruments simultaneously while also riding a unicycle, controlling two lions, and with six juggling monkeys might draw a crowd of ten, two people doing the tango (and there were many such performers) would always have close to a hundred onlookers. Granted, the tango dancers were talented and also pretty easy on the eyes, but I guess I’m more of a juggling-monkey kind of guy.

The plan is to go to bed early tonight, roam a bit more tomorrow, and then catch the flight to Ushuaia early in the afternoon. If I don’t have a chance to make any updates while in Ushuaia then this might be the last entry for a bit, but I’ll continue keeping a daily journal and upload everything at the end of January once an internet connection is again available.

The way the universe works, if I schedule a tight connection I’ll miss my flight, but when, like today, a few hours are scheduled for the connection the plane will not only leave on time, but I’ll be put on an earlier flight and given the gift of four wonderful hours in Texas. That said, from the plane window it appeared that a not-insignificant part of the state was on fire, something that appealed to my sadistic side. With luck I’ll be hopping on another plane soon and landing in Buenos Aires a short twelve hours after that. Stay tuned.

It will be nearly another four days before the M/V Polar Star leaves the dock in Ushuaia, but the trip has started. Today’s route is from San Francisco to Dallas, with an overnight flight to Buenos Aires. I’m there for a day before taking another flight to Ushuaia (at the tip of South America), then it’s a day there before the boat departs for the Falklands, South Georgia, and the Antarctic Peninsula. On the road again.