A big day for our guests! Today, we made our first landing on the
continent of Antarctica. Setting foot on the mainland means a lot! However,
being here so early in the season, ice can constitute a real challenge.
Fortunately, as we have been so many times this trip, the weather and ice
conditions were just perfect. MS Fram anchored at Andvord Bay and the
Expedition Team made everything in order to land at Neko Harbour, named after a
Scottish whaling vessel from the early 1900s.
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| Picture by Johannes C. Apon |
On shore, we were able to visit a few Gentoo penguin rookeries. It is
extremely fascinating to see how the penguins have made so-called ‘highways’
for commuting between their colonies and the sea. On the hills down to the sea,
they often just slide on their bellies. And after a successful fishing trip,
they jump up from the water as acrobats and land on shore. Some fantastic
jewels of glacier fronts formed the backdrop of this landing. The guests were
given the opportunity to hike up to a view point and watch out over the bay,
surrounded by blue ice and penguin rookeries, while the MS Fram down below
looked minuscule in this majestic scenery.
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| Picture by Johannes C. Apon |
It didn’t stop there today. The Fram continued through the beautiful Errara Channel, where snowcapped glaciers pump huge amounts of enormous icebergs into the sea. Our ship had to zigzag to avoid them. Going ashore our second landing site, Cuverville Island, was also a little challenge, but our skilled crew got us safely around the icebergs.
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| Picture by Johannes C. Apon |
Cuverville Island is identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a breeding colony of about 6,500 pairs of Gentoo penguins, the largest for this species on the Antarctic Peninsula. The surrounding scenery of looming mountains, coated with a thick layer of glacial ice, contributes to the forgetfulness of it all.
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| Picture by Johannes C. Apon |
