Around the Lens - Down Hill Boating

Despite the fact that our 110 meter ship looked like a toy in an icy bathtub, the bay felt oppressively small.  Low clouds obscured the tops of surrounding jagged peaks and tidewater glaciers terminating into the blackness of the water.  The windless morning, dark and thick with sodden mist dampened the continuous squawking of gentoo penguins.  It was eerie.  Somewhere on the other side of vast Neko Harbour, unbeknownst to us, a glacier had calved a massive hulk of ice from its face, creating another colossal iceberg.

I had just picked up Tammie who had anchored the zodiac she was driving 100 meters off the beach, out of the reach of the dropping tide.  On our way to shore, we paused to take in the scene.  Floating amongst small blocks of brash ice, the intensity of grey, white, cold, and damp resonated a deep chill to the bone.  Penguin highways stained brick red with guano weaved their way like frozen arteries up the white snow slope to a rocky outcrop.  Gigantic blue seracs hung precariously from the glacier beyond, creating an ominous backdrop as the penguins obliviously hopped around on the rocks, collecting and stealing stones for their nests.  Small waves lapped at the bouldery shore line as I pulled up to our landing site.  Tammie and I hopped out and began to secure our boat when a larger wave violently crashed into the stern of the boat, sending a shudder through the rubber pontoons.

Waves marched in without a hint of warning, successively growing larger and as they reared out of the water carrying blocks of ice with them up the shoreline.  With each blow, the boat was thrashed erratically about, pushed higher and higher up the pink granite boulders.  Tammie had seen the futility and danger in staying near the boat and made her way to higher ground, while I stubbornly hung on to a line secured to the length of the pontoon as the boat came to rest on a large pedestal 20 meters from the waterline.  Two other guides now joined me to make sure I hadn’t been pinned or crushed by the force of the water.

With only a few seconds before the next, and by far the largest wave reached us, I climbed into the boat and instructed the other guides that when I was lifted by the wave, to turn the boat so the nose was facing down hill towards the water.  Crashing up the rocks, the wave swept me off the boulders, pulling the boat down the beach with barely enough water under the keel to keep me a float as the wave retreated.  Seeing a gap in the rocks, I lowered the engine and managed to get enough of the propeller into the water to gain some forward momentum as another 2 meter wave hit, threatening to take me up the beach and into the rocks once again.  The engine screamed as I hit the throttle, spraying a rooster tail of water as I struggled against the shoreward momentum.  Then, as the wave receded, I was free!  The waves dissipated as quickly as they had come and once again, the only audible sound were the penguins.

- January 2015

Around the Lens - The Fur Seals of South Georgia

So here we are, standing back to back.  The once solid, but now crumbling beach stones Sophie and I are clapping together are rapidly disintegrating with each frantic impact.  I don’t want to reach down and grab whatever fresh rocks might be at my feet as that would require taking my eyes off three of the five large, aggressive, Antarctic Fur Seals who are currently surrounding us.  A distant relative of the Grizzly Bear, Fur Seals are very territorial, willing to defend their small batch of beach to the death.

Cooper Bay is more of a mild indentation than an actual bay, on the wild southern coast of South Georgia Island.  Really, every centimeter of coast line on South Georgia is wild and inhospitable - unless you have flippers.  At this latitude, storms rage with hurricane force, constantly circling unencumbered around the globe.  Traveling predominantly from west to east, rolling waves the size of apartment buildings abruptly end their journey in mass explosions of water and foam right here.  The bare pyramidal hulk of Cooper Island sits 1.5 kilometers to the south, funneling this swell and wind directly into the southwestern exposure of the bay - making landings here extremely difficult and rare.  

With uncharted offshore reefs and kelp forests with an appetite for outboard engine propellers, why would anyone want to come here?  Macaroni penguins, that's why.  Being the most numerous penguin on the globe, you might think they would be common place, but despising comfort, they frequently make their homes on steep rocky cliffs fully exposed to the horrendous weather.  

Today is the calmest day I have seen in my 3 years working this stretch of coast - the sun is shining with ‘calm’ 10 knot winds.  The last time I was in this area, fearing for my life, I struggled to lash boats to the outer deck of our ship in a raging blizzard and 80 knot winds with a large swell threatening to toss me into the frothing sea.  But today is different - the scouting party consisting of Sophie and myself, are lowered from the ship in our zodiac like a giant fishing lure into the deep blue water.  A 2-4 metre swell is more than apparent as I struggle to unhook the lifting straps from the crane with the boat rising and falling with the waves.  A minute later we are off towards land, speeding over the hills of water which obscure the ship from view each time we dip sharply into the troughs. 

No one on the ship has landed here before, so I blindly aim our little boat for the more prominent topographical features we could define from outdated British Admiralty charts.  As we head for a maze of sharp volcanic reef - foaming with whitewater and surging waves, I get the feeling that today is not our day for a landing.  Concealed behind the line of reefs is the small pocket beach I was hoping to land on.  We sat and anxiously watched as rogue waves swept through the kelp choked channel between jagged sea stacks.  

Optimistically, we make our way west around a small prominent of land, tacking our way through small keyholes between partly submerged reefs. A few minutes later we were hauling our boat up into a small bay with tiny waves gently lapping at a grey sand beach.  We had made it to land, but the penguin colony was still a fair distance away.  Ahead of us lies a beach with a strangely large number of large adult and adolescent male Fur Seals.  A desolate bachelor pad at the end of the earth.

In our haste to get moving, we had forgotten our battle gear (collapsable trekking poles) on the ship.  When something like a trekking pole touches the seals sensitive whiskers or flippers, they generally back off, or bite the pole.  Without our sabers, we grab a few rocks to clap together as the seals also don’t like the sharp sounds.  Feeling slightly vulnerable, we try to make ourselves as big and bad as possible (Sophie is 5’1’’) and forge our way through the mob of seals towards the Macaronis.  

Reaching a dead end along the beach, we scramble up a gully (also filled with seals) to a plateau covered with the only greenery on the island - tussock grass.  Tussock grows in large cascading mounds which create tunnels and pathways, camouflaged by the long blades of grass spilling from the plants summit.  Like a zombie movie, seals pop up out of the trenches with a vicious snarl everywhere around us.  Dodging bites, lunges, and fake outs from mouths filled with long, sharp canines stained orange with bacteria, we hop between tussock pedestals trying to keep our balance.  It’s not long before it is evident that we cannot bring a group of tourists here to dance with the seals, so we descend back to the beach.  

A final option is a narrow ledge which might connect to the pocket beach which was our original landing site.  Yet again, we find this to be blocked by seals!  As we turn to leave, we see that our exit has been filled in by three big males who are not keen on moving for two gore-tex clad intruders such as us.  Behind us, the seal on the ledge is reinforced by another male clambering out of the water for a grand total of five - each one doubling or tripling us in weight.  

Trying to think of anything we can use to pry our way between two of them, my thoughts are suddenly brought to our boat - equipped with two large hard plastic paddles.  

‘SHIT!’ I yell aloud.

When I tell Sophie, we are both burst out in fits of nervous hysterical laughter.  Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid making one last stand, we face them head on in one unified screaming charge, shooting for the biggest gap.  I put my boot out to block a bite and hop out of the circle of death.  They pursue us for a few metres, but we made it!  We strut back to the boat like the confident gangsters we are, daring any seal who's feeling lucky.  We own this neighborhood!  Even as we motor out through the reefs and over the waves, new seals join the resistance and lunge hungrily out of the water at our rubber pontoons.

- January 2015

Around the Len - South Georgia Sensory

South Georgia Island sleeps alone in the middle of the Southern Atlantic Ocean.  Rafts of king penguins and seals hint of a proximity to land well before it comes into view.  Layer by layer, the almost constant blanket of dark grey mist and fog delicately reveal forbidding crumbling peaks stained blue and white by hulking glaciers tumbling down from summit spires.  A myriad of shoals froth in the swell, protecting the black cobble beaches which are the only sanctuary for most of the living creatures on the island.  The instincts I have developed at sea tell me to stay away from such a treacherous coastline.  

A gentle offshore breeze caries with it a damp ferocity that attacks your nostrils.  Partially digested krill and squid, fece (mostly krill and squid), mix together in a sticky brown mud which flows between cesspools of stagnant seawater growing algae in fifty shades of green.  This is smell number one.  You usually get your first taste of smell number one (you can literally taste it!) between 100m and 1km off shore.  Smell number two arrives when you physically land on the beach where belches and open mouthed growls from giant southern elephant seals are mere metres away.  Skunky sea breath emanates from the mouths of fur seals.  Their fearsome canines stained orange with bacteria.  Add to the mix a quarter of a million king penguins at any given time - half of which are molting - throwing plumes of feathers to the sea.  Oh, and rotting kelp.  Yummm!

Most glaciers here terminate into the sea.  Calving large diamonds of ice into impossibly cold, deep blue water.  But, the ones we are heading towards end on the muted green of a grassy plain. The colour seems out of place in such a barren monochromatic landscape usually reserved for higher alpine places.  We weave in amongst purple kelp beds which are in constant motion and wait for the waves to subside before our dash to shore.

The trick with landing the inflatable zodiac is to aim for the largest gap (usually only a few feet) between imposing male fur seals guarding the waters edge.  These beasts are the oceans equivalent to a grizzly bear and are very territorial.  They don’t like their whiskers being touched so we arm ourselves with collapsable trekking poles and attempt to move them back and hopefully hold them in the bay while we pass.  They charge and lunge with bites, but if you hold your ground, you’re usually fine.  Although, one of my very experienced colleagues, Ewen, got bitten on the leg while trying to protect one of our passengers at the start of a hike.  The tourist slipped on the damp grass, sensing a moment of weakness, the seal lunged.  Ewen was right beside and in a split second, he decided better against kicking the seal out of the way.  In this moment of hesitation, the seal bit Ewen on the leg and in close combat, all Ewen could do was grab the seal in a headlock.  Not used to this style of combat, the seal used a more passive defense technique and threw his breakfast up onto Ewen’s lap in a putrid pink mess and squirmed out of his grasp.  

As your nostrils adjust and gag reflex subsides, sound takes over.  Black and white king penguin parents marked with bright orange ascots stand out starkly amidst a swarming city of eight month old chicks.  Their thick down coats make them look like fluffy brown marshmallows.  It sounds like thousands of kazoo players busking for their dinner, but each with their own unique voice which their parents can distinguish from hoards of chicks.  Like a traveler hearing their native language, they are drawn to each other through these invisible vibrations.  With a quarter of a million of these unique calls going on all at once, the sound is disorienting, even for us.

Large male fur seals whimper like lost puppies one minute, then race forward snarling to protect their precious harem.  Elephant seals roar like great lions with undulating bullfrog barks.  Their offspring lay on the sand like overstuffed sausages making farting noises, snot flying from large nostrils.  Skuas the size of vultures squawk and fight over a nutrient rich fur seal placenta.  The blind newborn struggling to find her exhausted mother.  In this cacophony of sound, somehow the fragile call of a tiny pipet (the southernmost songbird in the world) floats above it all.  And from us, rounds of camera fire shoot out in high speed bursts.  Motor drives struggle to keep up with this slow pace of fat and happy animals.

We weave in and out of penguins and seals, making our way to the main penguin colony, the jewel of Salisbury Plain.  Housed in from above by rocky moraines and ridge lines covered in mounds of tussock grass, the vast metropolis of penguins spill out onto the grassy plain.  If you sit quietly, inquisitive penguins waddle right up to see what kind of strange creature you are.  In moments you can become engulfed.  With outstretched flippers, it seems like they are coming with a welcoming hug, but with a quick peck at your boot, they lose interest and move on.  

As usual, the predictably unpredictable weather has turned our calm, grey day into an evacuation.  Strong localized katabatic winds race down the glacier, hitting the beach with an immense force and turn the sea into an erratic mess.  Getting back into the boat is an ordeal with waves crashing over the stern soaking everyone.  As we motor away from the breaking waves, I look back at the scene on the beach.  The wildlife don’t seem to notice our hasty departure or could even care less.  The penguins are still being penguins and going about their penguin lives.  The place is so surreal, that it seems like the director who scripted this whole scene would say “cut” and it would all disappear.  This thought brings a smile to my face and I am so thankful to know that a place like this exists.

- November 2014