Exploring Antarctica Aboard Roald Amundsen, Part 2

Well this is Thursday and it's November the 3rd. This is our second day in the Antarctic. We're coming into Orne or Orne Harbor. Not sure how you pronounce that O-R-N-E. Temperature is still around freezing and the wind is light at the moment. You can see all of the sea ice that is here. There's that beautiful blue color that's so typical of this part of the world on the ice. We'll be going ashore in a couple of hours and then we'll be cruising the area this afternoon. Some people are doing kayaking. Some are even camping out. That I can't imagine. But we should have a good day. The weather looks pretty good. It's overcast. Hopefully some sun will come out. Day number two in the Antarctic. Well unfortunately here on our Thursday the 4th our landing has been canceled. Our cruising has been canceled. We're gonna try another spot. It is snowing. It's foggy and the deck is slick as ice. Running track is slick. I'm just scooting my feet and I'm headed back in because as you can see no one's out here other than this idiot. You can fall down very easily. This is toward the back of the ship. Just too much sea ice evidently to get into the harbor. The ship hasn't been able to make much speed because of that. So they're gonna try another Bay and maybe we'll get a little cruising later this afternoon because it does stay daylight until about 11 o'clock. And then it starts getting light again about 4 in the morning. So that's where we are right now. Later. Here we go on our first cruising adventure. There's Mr. Tom, Susie, Chris our guide and driver. We're out in the ice flows. Hopefully something will be worth seeing. It's snowing to beat the band. Zodiacs are pretty much the industry standard now across all expedition vessels are this type of boat. I can turn the screen but I would have to turn the camera too. There he is. That's what I'm trying to go scout now. There were some seals around this area. Not that many and it's surprisingly hard to relocate the same bit of ice that you saw in an ice field. So I'm gonna do my best. Otherwise keep an eye out in all directions. There is wildlife around. We'll see some more later. So the reason why Glacial Ice looks blue and why some areas are more or less blue. So see this stuff on this top that is pure white is just snow pack. It is quite fresh snow. The glacier you see is still just snow but it's where the snow on top of it is built up to such a weight and it has compressed the snow below it into ice. Now the older the ice the deeper in the glacier that it is the bluer that it will seem. That blueness comes from there being less air bubbles in the ice. The light can therefore penetrate deeper and the deeper into the ice it penetrates the bluer it looks and it refracts back out. So here we are again on Friday November 4, 2022 our third day in Antarctica. We're in Nikko Bay and we were scheduled for a landing at 11 o'clock this morning. It's about 830 in the morning now and as you can see heavy snow is still falling. It's been falling for about 24 hours now. The ship is just completely covered in snow and it's even forecast for a blizzard later on. So they canceled our landing which was to be at 11 but some boats went out for cruising. We did that yesterday because we couldn't land. Here's some of our people out in the Zodiacs. We've elected not to go because it's just pretty miserable out there just getting beat up with snow in the face and so forth. We did see some Gentoo penguins this morning a colony of about a hundred or so that were swimming and jumping as they do in the water and that's pretty much it. There's some more of our folks getting ready to go out. So hopefully we will be able to land. We're not supposed to land till late this afternoon at 530. Of course it stays daylight till about 11 o'clock but don't know. We'll have to see how the weather is. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. It'll be our last day in Antarctica before we turn around and head north back toward Ushuaia and going through the Drake Passage. So that's all for right now. Well I do see the Gentoo penguins that we saw earlier today. They are right there. If I can get in and focus okay and hold the camera steady and in the wind. They get in pretty tight but I can't hold the camera steady enough. They'll just bounce all around the place. They are swimmers. Oop I lost them. There they are. All right very disappointing day. Hopefully it'll get better. Well unfortunately we have more bad news here on Friday the 4th of November. You see our Zodiacs are empty. They brought everybody back from cruising because an iceberg evidently is coming across the bay that is large enough that it could block us in. And so we're bringing everybody back from cruising in order to make a hasty retreat out of this bay. According to the staff and the captain the expedition crew we still plan a landing somewhere this afternoon but we need to get out of this bay before we get locked in. This is one of the hazards you get into when you come early in the season. It's just late spring or the beginning of summer and there's still a lot of sea ice that is out here. So once we get these Zodiacs in we're going to be gone. Every night it's saying we're going one place and then they change it to another because of weather conditions. So we're cruising now. It's afternoon. We're going to make a landing. We hope somewhere. There are some penguins over here. There's some English. We're going to take a station over there. We're going to see more of the world. We're going to see mountains and icebergs. We're going to follow this right here. Wow. Lots of sea ice. So, the one stand up please. Can we get the other one? There's a snake. They're right here. Waiting for each other. I know. So, are these the... Are these a mixture of male and females? Yes. Or are they all... No, no. This is a mix. It's actually really, really hard to tell if a penguin is a male or female. From the outside, it's almost impossible. But I've heard that it's the females that go out to the water to fish, and then the men, they take care of the egg and they bring back the... They take turns. Well, there's blood, so it looks like they've eaten something. No. That's not blood? No. That's poop. Oh, okay. They eat trees, so everything's red. There we go. A little swim this morning for the gentoos. Over there. This is where we load to get ready to go out on our expeditions, and we're getting ready to go. Waiting for our boat to pull up. And here's our crew. Hello. Hello, crew. And... I'm here, too. Just want you to know, I'm going, too. All right. Getting ready to have a good time out on the ice. And here's where we will go. Pardon me. Sorry. And here we are, getting back in the boat, heading back. Quite an operation. Getting ready to head back to the ship. And there it is, right there. Okay, rip. Turn around. Here we are, heading back from the seventh continent, and we've accomplished our goal. Well, it's Monday, the 7th of November. Tomorrow morning, we will be in Ushuaia, flying our way to Buenos Aires, and then on to Atlanta and to Fort Myers. So the trip has come to an end. We're getting ready to enter into the Beagle Channel. Seems I can open the door. Finally, the snow has all melted off our lanai. This is coming to the Beagle Channel. It's been two days. Two days we have been on the Drake Passage. We called it the Drake Shake, and it's really been rough for these two days. But now, it's all said and done, and we're ready to head home. We've had a good trip. We've seen a lot of things. So this is the end of our Patagonia and Antarctic expedition on the Rolong Utsan, or the Gruden Line ship.