South-Georgia

Today, we reached the stunning island of South-Georgia. It took us two days to sail from the Falklands, and we were blessed with calm seas. On our way, we saw the interesting “Shag Rocks”, named after the great number of Shag birds that nest on these desolated rocks in the middle of the ocean.

Some of us got up early to watch the sunrise at approx. 4.30 am. Although South-Georgia is known for its changing weather, we were lucky again and could see the sun rise above the sharp mountain peaks, some rising more than 2,000 meters above the sea. Since we are still early in the season, practically all mountains were still covered in snow.

On our first landing of the day, we visited Fortuna Bay, were we could see a king penguin colony with chicks, fur seals and enormous elephant seals.

23 of our guests signed up for our Shackleton hike and followed the famous English polar explorer’s footsteps from Fortuna Bay to the former whaling station of Strømnes. While Fram left Fortuna Bay, the hiking group ascended out of the valley, through the snow. It really felt like an expedition! The views on the valley and the surrounding mountain walls, Strømnes below, and the bay and sea at the horizon, while Fram appeared again around the corner, were just stunning.

Reunited in Strømnes, all passengers had the opportunity to walk around and enjoy Strømnes, where fur seals and elephant seals were sleeping and loudly snoring on the beach.

Stanley!

The Falkland Islands are so amazing that time seems to run at double speed here. Suddenly, we are on our final day of a 3-day visit and it seems like only an hour ago that we arrived! OK, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the point.

So today we were in Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands (pop. around 2,500), for virtually the whole day. We arrived around 0800, cleared customs, and were allowed to disembark. Many went on various excursions in or outside of the town such as a trip to Bluff Cove, nature and birdwatching walks and a tour of Stanley. A few lucky guests even got to fly over the area in an aircraft tour! Here are some images from our bird watching tour:

Kelp Gull stretching its wings

Rufous-chested Dotterel

Dark-faced Ground Tyrant

A stay in Stanley is multi-dimensional. You have nature and wildness just outside, and inside you have heritage buildings, shops, pubs, memorials, museums, wonderful local people, who seem always keen to chat, and all the other trappings of a modern town. Of course Land Rovers are everywhere and display very simple licence plates! I wonder what the F stands for?!

The quaint Jubilee Villas dating from 1887

Christ Church Cathedral with the famous whale bone arch

Falkland Islands coat of arms: Desire the Right!

Stanley has experienced an economic boom in recent years. People are moving to the island and offshore oil exploration is on-going. Tourism is growing as well with many ships visiting the islands in the summer months and a regular, scheduled flight from Punta Arenas, Chile continues operation. Once in the Falklands, many of the outer islands are accessible by aircraft. Maybe in the future flights will open up to and from Argentina, a mere 400 km to the west.

One of the FIGAS Britten-Norman Islanders providing inter-island flight service

Hiking, cookies and penguins at the Falklands

After the winds and swells at Saunders Island yesterday, we were happy to see blue skies and calm seas upon our arrival at West Point Island. Locals Kikki and Thies gave us a warm welcome, included one of the most extensive English tea & cookies table you could imagine. The fact that 200 passengers were interested in visiting their lovely house, could not have been less of a problem. After we had taken off our shoes, we could choose among dozens of different kinds of cookies. Enjoying them in the spring sun, while sitting in the back yard among the daffodils, felt like a real treat.

Besides the outstanding local hospitality, the hike to Devil’s Nose was our other reason to land at West Point Island. After half an hour of hiking, we were able to admire this rocky promontory. It is the habitat of approximately 2,100 breeding pairs of black-browed albatross, living together with about 500 pairs of rockhopper penguins. Although the rockhoppers and albatross occasionally seem to enjoy some neighboring arguments, they truly live together in peace, often nesting only centimeters apart.

Our second landing of the day took us a few miles further north, Carcass Island. The hospitality here was just as impeccable, and the cookies even more abundant – although, of course, it is impossible to favorize either West Point or Carcass.

We needed the calories, because the second hike of the day was even longer and took us about 1 hour each way. The stunning views at Leopard Beach were absolutely worth it. Sunbathing on the sandy beach or commuting through the dunes on their way from or to the sea, we were able to experience a whole bunch of Gentoo penguins and an occasional Magellanic penguin.

We made it back on board the Fram just before dark. It truly was nice day, packed with hiking, cookies and penguins. Give us more of the good stuff! 

We are now intrepid sailors!

Well we have been sailing for the past three days in open sea towards the Falkland Islands, and encountered a storm yesterday morning. It was no surprise as weather forecasting is highly sophisticated these days and we had lots of charts showing big red blobs to the south of the islands. No one ever wants to see these blobs, which indicate bigger waves or higher winds, but these meteorological features are a part of sailing in South Atlantic waters and there is nothing we can do about it. Well, I shouldn't say nothing because our officers on the bridge are skilled at navigating to give us the smoothest ride possible under the conditions and this may mean deviating a little from the optimum course, then speeding up to make up the time.

So today we are approaching our goal- the Falkland Islands! And what a goal they are- remote, wild, beautiful, and totally fascinating on many different levels. By late afternoon we had arrived at Saunders Island but the wind was blowing VERY strongly! Anyway, our intrepid expedition staff decided to see what the conditions were like on the beach and we launched two of our Polarcirkel boats and went in. As we approached we saw that much of the landing beach was being affected by rollers, although they were not too high and they were intermittent. This last feature was the key to success because the time between waves was long enough to allow us to land our guests!

The Saunders Island landing was fantastic, even with the wind blowing sand in our eyes! There was so much to see that we didn't care! The theme was wildlife particularly birds with five species of penguins breeding, three gull species and many others present. We will let a selection of images tell the story of this amazing place!

Waves rolling in and being blown back to sea

Part of the Gentoo Penguin colony

Some King Penguins had chicks

A Rockhopper Penguin pair with the Macaroni Penguin behind

A nice Brown-hooded Gull showing a pink breast

Two Black-browed Albatrosses courting

We landed on the beach at the far end

A young Striated Caracara

Some of our guests enjoying the wildlife at Saunders

A great day at sea

We are on our way! Yesterday, MV Fram left Buenos Aires. On board are 216 guests from 18 countries, all around the world. And boy, how excited they are to 'set sail' for Antarctica! 

The skyline of Buenos Aires

Our first stop will be the Falkland Islands. Distances are vast here in the Southern Hemisphere: it will take us more than 100 hours to get there. After following the brown water of the Rio de la Plata estuary, passing the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo, Fram reached the Atlantic Ocean and is now headed straight south.

The first sunset of our voyage was a spectacular one: a vivid light show with all the colours of the rainbow.

Sunset on the Rio de la Plata

So, what to do at sea? Well, our guests seem to be very good at enjoying themselves with various activities. Among the most popular are:

• sunbathing on dek 5, enjoying summer temperatures and the blue sky above a halcyon sea.
• attending various lectures to learn more about the exciting Antarctic geology, ornitology, geography and climate. 
• enquiring information about the myriad of excursions and activities our Expedition Team will be organizing on the Falkland Islands, and during the many other landings MV Fram will make in Antarctica.
• birdwatching. Already on our first day at sea, we have seen a few very interesting sea birds, like this young South American tern. Soon, we will be in the Kingdom of albatrosses and penguins!

young South American tern

All in all, we are building up - and looking forward! - to a new season in Antarctica, packed with a whole bunch of unforgettable adventures. 

Stay tuned and follow us on our voyage!

A halcyon Atlantic Ocean

A new season begins

As promised, here we are in Buenos Aires, starting a new Antarctic season. For those not familiar with the comings and goings of our ship, MS Fram, you may think it strange that we start here. Well, it really isn't. Fram has spent the last weeks crossing the immense Atlantic Ocean, starting in Bergen on 7 October and reaching Buenos Aires just today, a little over 3 weeks later. Now we are positioned well to sail for our first destination of the Falkland Islands which are about 1700 km to the south.

View of part of the city from our hotel, 20th floor!

Buenos Aires is a gigantic city. With it's surrounding metropolitan area, it is one of the biggest in the world with about 16 million people living within it's boundaries. Of course it's famous for tango, Evita Perón, football (24 professional teams play within the city limits!) and is the birthplace of the current Pope Francis!

The Casa Rosada showing the balcony where Evita gave her last speech

Buenos Aires is a very popular tourist destination. Many of us had a chance to see parts of the city before we boarded the Fram, which was docked alongside in the main port area. It was great to see so many school children enjoying various parts of the city.

The Pope is everywhere!

Local colour!

There is quite a of things to accomplish on sailing day. Fram arrived in the harbour about 7:30am and immediately started provisioning of food and other goods for the upcoming season. We also needed to "bunker" which is the nautical term for filling up with fuel. The long Atlantic crossing depleted supplies. By 10:30am our first passengers started arriving and we were all on board by about 3:30pm. What a relief to be on board! It is such a great feeling! Soon after we had our mandatory safety drill before sailing about 4:00pm, right on time! Two Argentinean pilots took us out of the harbour and into the famous Rio de la Plata.

The Rio (river in English) is really an estuary separating Argentina to the south from Uruguay to the north. We will be sailing in the Rio overnight and will enter the South Atlantic tomorrow morning, before turning south to our destination of the Falkland Islands. We are all looking forward to some beautiful days at sea before we get there. By the way, while at sea, we often combine two days in a single blog.

So, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride over the next few months!

Frøya the salmon island

Today we visited the growing island community of Sistranda on Frøya and island that has been all about fishing throughout its history and nowadays is a big centre for fishfarming. Some of us went to visit the Salmon factory SalMar where Salmon from its farms is slaughtered and packaged and about 30 truck loads a day are delivered daily to its customers.

But also for those who stayed in town there was lots to see and do like concerts of 2 different choirs or the local food market.

 

 And even speedboats for the ones who think that Fram always goes a bit slowly