Bowermaster’s Adventures — Live from Antarctica: part 3

by Jon Bowermaster on


Tabular Heaven, Antarctica, Day 3

Every place along the Antarctic Peninsula tends to be my favorite. Bailey Head. Neko Harbor. Paradise Bay. Cuverville. The Lemaire Channel. The Grand Didier Channel. Crystal Sound. The Fish Island Group. Marguerite Bay. And on and on and on.

But in Antarctica places can tend to run together thanks to one commonality: Here it is truly all about just one thing, The Ice. Sure, we all know there’s rock and snow below (even petrified forests and most likely dinosaur bones). But for the moment still, I still come to the far south each austral summer for the ice.

I admit to having a favorite: The big, tabular icebergs that litter the Weddell Sea like giant white dominoes. Set free from their role as guardian of the coastline gives them an independence apparent in their grandness. Frozen sea built up over centuries of falling snow, these particular tabulars are broken off from, remnants of the Larsen Ice Shelf. They are drifting (very slowly) north through the Antarctic Sound, where they will eventually float (very slowly)from the Southern Ocean into the Atlantic where they will, in a decade or so?, melt.

Today they are significant for more than just their size. These were once the grand guardians of the glaciers lining the eastern side of the Peninsula. That they have broken off and drifted away means those glaciers are at risk of disappearing ever faster.

They are long (on average a mile, sometimes up to ten and twelve miles) and high (one hundred and fifty, two hundred feet) and barely on the move. At the moment most are grounded and lodged on the ocean floor, shearing it clean of all living things. Their role in Antarctica’s future is powerful. Free to roam, and to disappear with the assistance of wind, rain, and warming temperatures, they’ve given up their role as protectorate and taken on the role of floating idols, reflecting sky and sea in new patterns every single minute.

Bowermaster’s Adventures — Live from Antarctica: part 2

by Jon Bowermaster on
My first footsteps on Terra Antarctic this season were taken on Barrientos Island, one of the tiny Aitcho Island group, part of the South Shetlands, still one hundred miles off the continent. (It was just twenty miles from here, on King George Island, that we dropped – and then picked up – our kayaks two years ago.) Those first steps each austral summer are always fantastic, memorable, a reminder of why I keep coming back year after year.

The sky this morning is grey-green, the sun striving hard to burn through; the smell of the penguin colonies as powerful as ever. A recent snowstorm had buried many of the penguin nests, which have now been mostly unburied by their inhabitants. While the South Shetlands are not the most prolific wildlife spots in Antarctica, within a ten-minute walk I see three species of penguin (Gentoo, Chinstrap and a stand-alone, way-out-of-his-way King) and three different kinds of seal (Weddell, Elephant and Leopard).

The tall King – visible from the shore standing on the crest of a small hill, silhouetted – stands out distinctly because he is literally five times the size of the other birds. What he is doing here is a mystery; at some point he obviously made a wrong turn somewhere because his home is most likely South Georgia, 660 miles to the east. Apparently he’s been here for a couple seasons, so though he looks out of place, towering above the other penguins, he’s obviously decided to stay put. There are rumors he may have tried to breed while here, though unsuccessfully.

The afternoon’s walk is at one of my favorite stops, Deception Island. Landing on the beach at Bailey Head, with its steep and fast fall-off, is always a challenge. The reward? Somewhere between 120,000-160,000 breeding Chinstraps (even the penguin experts among us have a hard time counting them all). Walk off the black sand beach, beneath a heavily snowcapped volcano, and a wide valley opens up exposing a mile-long line of marching penguins, three, four, five abreast, making their way back and forth from the sea and up a gently-sloping, five-hundred-foot tall hill. Those coming from the cold Southern Ocean, stomachs swollen from several hours of fishing, many can barely stand or waddle. Those heading the other direction, towards the sea, are easily identifiable by their filthy stomachs, streaked in mud and guano from a long day spent nurturing a pair of eggs (chicks are coming within the next couple weeks).

From a seat on a chunk of ice atop the hill I watch the comings and goings for an hour. Below, on either side of the steep hill, plays out the whole lasciviousness of life: Flirtation. Sex. Birth. Loving. Feuding. Friendship. Feeding. Youth. Middle age. Impairment. Death.

What surprises most on their first visit to a colony – after they get used to the guano-tinged smell that will linger in their nose hairs for a couple weeks, even after they’ve left Antarctica – is the reality that everything in a penguin’s life takes place in this one place. Especially real is the dying. Skeletal remains in every form litter the black sand, from seashore to the top of the hill. Black-and-white wings attached to a Skua-cleaned skeleton; a solitary, perfectly intact foot; blood-filled bodies, just beginning to be pecked by scavengers; long, thin vertebrae. Elegiac, each is both art and a reminder that life often ends not far from where it began.

By eight p.m. a warmish breeze has blown up, the sun come … and gone, now hidden by clouds. In this season of course, it never gets completely dark – sunrise tomorrow is expected at 02:33.

Someone emailed a very good question the other day, regarding my own carbon footprint, especially when traveling to such remote places as Antarctica. It’s both a legitimate question and one we should all ponder.

I’ve tried to work out my own carbon footprint online a couple times in the past, but as soon as I start to respond to Question 2 – “How often do you fly?” – the computer starts blinking red and smoking. Flying is a sizable contributor to CO2 in the atmosphere; I do it constantly and around the world. My only rationale is that by bringing back-stories from the places I fly to, and sharing them — especially with classrooms – I’m a bit absolved, though not completely. An option would be to stay home; I guess … one I will continue to ponder.

I traveled a couple years ago in the high Arctic with Richard Branson, who – as an airline company owner – knows a few things about the environmental impact of flying. His company, he explained, was experimenting with less-polluting fuels. As for his own personal carbon footprint, when it came to all the flying he does he rationalized … as all of us frequent fliers do. He was off the next month, for example, to South Africa, to meet with Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu and another nine peacemakers. “We could all walk there, I guess,” he said. “But I don’t think we’d get much accomplished. It doesn’t mean we don’t think about, or realize, the environmental impact of our actions.”

I’m out of the loop news-wise; has anyone published a story about the carbon contributions of the thousands who have gathered for eleven days in Copenhagen to debate the future of climate change?

Bowermaster’s Adventures — Live from Antarctica: part 1

by Jon Bowermaster on

The sky is gray, the air filled with a brisk wind and salt spray. A perfect day just south of Cape Horn. We are halfway across the Drake Passage and what is frequently called the windiest-place-on-earth is amazingly – and thankfully – calm. The gray/black seas are lumpy, the peaks of the waves tinged by white, but hardly the six to twenty foot seas that are common out here.

We are about a third of the way — two hundred miles — into the crossing from Ushuaia, Argentina to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and, fingers-crossed; it appears we have dodged a bullet weather-wise. I’ve crossed the Drake dozens of times, always with a fair amount of trepidation. While big seas often equal good adventure, and I have nothing against adventure, but they can also be more than a little intimidating. And living without intimidation is a new goal of mine!

By midday tomorrow we should be taking footsteps on an island off the tip of the Peninsula.

I’ve been to Antarctica a couple dozen times; this trip is momentous because my introduction to the seventh continent was exactly twenty years ago right now, as part of my friend Will Steger’s Transantarctic Expedition. TAE, the last expedition ever by dog on the continent, was a big one: An international team of six men and thirty-six sled dogs spent 221 days on the ice, traveling 3,741 miles across the continent, from the tip of the Peninsula to the South Pole, across the Area of Inaccessibility to the far eastern edge. Among the expeditions many firsts and lasts, the spot on the frozen sea ice where that it began, near small black peaks known as Seal Nunataks off the tip of the Peninsula, is today open ocean. The ice where a Twin Otter from King George Island dropped the team has broken up and drifted off towards South America. What was then frozen sea guarding and protecting Antarctica’s glaciers – part of the Larsen B ice shelf – largely disappeared in 2002.
When it comes to traveling along the Peninsula it’s all about the ice. Each season the ice here is different. As the air and sea temperatures have warmed along the Peninsula – on average by five to nine degrees Fahrenheit, the greatest increase on the planet — the ice freezes later, melts earlier. But as I say, each season is different and I’m very curious to see what it looks like this year. What I’ve been hearing from friends who’ve already been to the Peninsula this early austral summer, they report seeing more snow and less snow, colder air than usual and many blue-sky days.
We are about to cross the Antarctic Convergence, an invisible line on the map between South America and Antarctica that indicates you’ve crossed into true southern territory and air temperatures drop fast. Despite the cold I’m going to try and spend as many hours outside today as possible, basking under the gray skies and in the salt spray, both of which remind me – always – of closing in on Antarctica.

Bowermaster’s Antarctica — Greetings from Antarctica!

by Jon Bowermaster on

Hello … from … Antarctica! More specifically, it’s Peninsula, which juts like a 600-mile-long finger from the seventh continent, stretching towards the southern tip of the Americas. Surrounded on either side by frozen sea ice and open ocean, this is the most dynamic, the most changing region of Antarctica and a place I have been coming to for nearly twenty years. My first experience? With dog sleds, in 1989, the last of the great sledding expeditions to explore the continent. More recently, last year I brought a small team and sea kayaks and we traveled from the tip of the Peninsula to 120 miles south of the Antarctic Circle.

What keeps me coming back are a variety of things, but particularly that the place is changing so fast. While Antarctica seems remote, an icy, impenetrable fortress – and admittedly, much of the continent, especially its high, dry, cold interior lives up to that reputation – the Peninsula is where many of the impacts of global climate change are most evidenced. Average temperatures here have climbed more than anywhere else on the planet during the past fifty years.

Ironically, the Peninsula is simultaneously witnessing another boom: Tourism! It’s hard to fathom until you’re down here and see, on occasion, several big tourists boats in one day, but Antarctica has become one of the hottest tourist destinations on the planet. Each year sets new records for visitors; last season, more than 46,000. The upside is that such visits create new ambassadors for one of the few places on the planet successfully governed by international treaty.
The downside is something we witnessed just last month, when a tourist boat, the “M/V Ushuaia,” ran aground about fifty miles from where I write. While all the passengers and crew were safely transported by Chilean Naval ship to nearby King George Island, then flown back to South America, the ship was still on the rocks for days. With a hole in it, which has leaked fuel oil into what are otherwise pristine waters. The concern was that even if the ship is pulled off the rocks, given the damage, it may not have been able to navigate or even be towed back to Argentina. Luckily, the ship made it back safely.

I also come for the sheer beauty of the place. Nowhere on the planet can match Antarctica for grandeur. It’s like Alaska piled on top of another Alaska piled on top of another Alaska and then dropped at the edge of the Himalaya. This morning I hiked 1,500 feet up a hill on Cuverville Island. Out of the wind, it was warm, just about the freezing mark. Gusting winds dropped the temps to 17, 18 degrees. The higher I got, the more the expanse grew. In the bay below a dozen icebergs bigger than small apartment buildings – blue and white, shining under a bright blue sky – were stuck in the shallows. Across a narrow channel, tongues of ancient glaciers fall to the sea. Along the way I passed a half-dozen colonies of Gentoo penguins nesting; they will have chicks to take care of within a matter of days. It was a brilliantly clear day and as far as I could see – a dozen miles — everything was deep blue and bright white, marred by the occasional exposed rocky cliff.

I like to think of Antarctica as the beating heart of Planet Earth and this morning, despite any and all concerns, it seemed to be very, very healthy.

I’m here for two months and will be reporting in every week or so, so please stay tuned.

Click HERE for more dispatches from Antarctica!