Day 5 of 13: Landing on the Seventh Continent

Today’s post is long, because a lot happened today! Octantis arrived at Neumayer Channel overnight in preparation for our first landing excursions. We had a 7:25 am meet time to load our zodiac boat and go ashore the Antarctic continent at Dorian Bay. That meant no breakfast because we had to start the complicated assembly of all our required gear by 6:30. Boarding went smoothly, with plenty of crew members to ensure every guest was properly attired and ready to go.

Damoy Point is a large, rocky elevated area, accessed by a landing site at a protected cove called Dorian Bay, on the northwest side of Wiencke Island, in the Palmer Archipelago of Antarctica. Damoy Point is also the name given the local penguin colony. (insert map)

Ten people at a time loaded each zodiac boat for the ~10-minute ride ashore. Zodiac teams were spaced throughout the morning to ensure that we never exceeded the maximum allowable 100 persons ashore at any time, as mandated by IAATO. 

Long before you see penguin colonies, you smell the guano (penguin poop). Shortly after leaving the Octantis on our zodiac, the pungent order wafted across the bay, so we knew we were approaching a sizeable colony. Here’s Keith stepping foot on our 7th continent:

Once ashore, we first had the opportunity to visit an Argentinian refuge hut and the British Damoy Hut, a summer hut that serviced an ice strip for aircraft landing. The Damoy hut and ice-strip were closed in 1995; the building is now listed as an Historic Site and is open for visitors. 

Then we walked up a snow-covered glacier to the area approaching the historic landing strip to get a good vantage point for the numerous rocky perches that form the penguin colony.

Next, we hiked to the nearest penguin colonies to have a closer look. 

“Penguin highways” through the snow connect rocky sections of the colonies. Everyone was careful not to step in or near the penguin highways. Here’s a three-shot sequence of a penguin walking between two sections of the Damoy Point colony (note our ship in the background):

By the way, the Damoy Point penguin colony is populated by Gentoo penguins. Gentoo penguins have adapted well to climate change and the population has flourished in recent decades; less so for the Adelie and Chinstrap penguins that we hope to see later. “Oceanites” is on our expedition. They conduct annual penguin colony counts and chick counts, plus they assess the physical health of colonies. They counted 600 penguins in this colony, down sharply from the ~2,000 seen here in recent years. They will study their findings combined with other counts, but they believe the sharp reduction is due to this year’s heavy snow in the area, leaving less exposed rocky nesting areas at this location. More photos of our penguin encounter:

Unfortunately, some people were late to return to their zodiac, either because they were excited to be ashore or they weren’t able-bodied enough to manage the single-file walking through the snow. Fortunately, the crew adjusted, ensuring that all got to enjoy the landing while staying under the 100-person limit. In one case, two crew members devoted full support to ensure that one elderly gentleman had his opportunity to complete his shore visit, while not holding up the others. All-in-all, a successful first-ever landing excursion for the Viking Octantis, with very few logistical bugs to be worked out. The crew all carry radios, talking to one another to break bottlenecks while maintaining safety protocol.

As we boarded our zodiacs to exit via Dorian Bay, we caught sight of the most southerly birds in the world, the South Polar Squa. They are known to raid penguin colonies to eat the eggs or young penguin chicks. And we saw evidence of their (unfortunate) success.

Before dinner, we were supposed to sail through the Neumayer Channel, but the winds were too strong to navigate it. Just one more example of the captain’s appeal that we remain flexible as they adjust for wind and weather conditions. Instead, we went sightseeing at Borgen Bay. 

Tomorrow’s weather outlook is great, with very light winds and sunshine. The ship can’t travel as far south as we would have liked, because heavy sea ice covers the route we planned to take. Instead, we will visit Cape Renard and Hidden Bay, for kayaking and sightseeing.

#Antarctica

#Penguins

#Octantis

#MyVikingStory