January 19, 2025 Terra Nova Bay

 Jan 19-22. Too many photos, so will send as individual days.


January 19 - Terra Nova Bay


The mild weather continued this morning as we entered Terra Nova Bay.  Three countries, Germany, South Korea, and Italy, have  bases located here.  We took zodiacs to the beach and had an opportunity to hike up the hills - most of the area is rocky with patches of ice, and the surrounding mountains are snow-covered.  While we had prepared for cold weather, many of us quickly removed our jackets and under layers.


One imagines that nothing grows in such a barren place, but in fact, there are lichens and moss in many colors.







With such barren terrain, it’s hard to imagine anything living off the earth, but Skuas lay their eggs and hatch their chicks.  For such predators, they are gorgeous birds, and of course the chicks are pretty adorable.


Skua

Skua chick



A few Weddell seals and some Adelie penguins could be seen on the nearby sea ice, a truly picturesque scene.


Pretty amazing, right???


When we got back to the ship, it was announced we would do our second polar plunge, but this time into the open water.  Super fun and photos will be coming!!!


Not to top that, but we can, we saw three Emperor penguins that evening!!!  That may be a big hooha for some of you, but for us, it’s incredible!  Remember Disney’s Happy Feet?  It’s these guys!  You rarely see them, and we saw three!  The ship’s bridge crew saw this single penguin from far away (it’s still mind boggling how they can see a single penguin in vast areas of sea ice) and managed to get relatively close in the calm water for us to take photos.






These are younger penguins, maybe 1-2 years old (they can live 30-40 yrs, spending most of their lives in the open ocean).  The yellow around their throat gets more distinctive as they get older.   We all feel like we hit the jackpot being able to see them.  


By the afternoon, our ship relocated to Inexcessible Island, another area for researchers.  However, as we looked out the window just above the bridge, the winds picked up, so we had lectures instead.  


We then had an added ‘bonus’ - the expedition staff arranged for us to take a zodiac ride along the Drygalski Ice Tongue, a long floating humongous piece of ice that extends from the land for 40 miles (and 15 miles wide, approx 60 feet high)!!  Amazing evening of motoring and floating around this huge tongue of ice (caused by a glacier forcing ice through a narrower channel of rock).  We learned of a new term - a “fog bow” (as compared with a rainbow)!



Two more posts…things get very exciting….







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