MS National Geographic Explorer
Brown Bluff and the Weddell Sea
Saturday, February 12, 2011

    Overnight, we sailed across the Bransfield Straight and into Antarctic Sound on our way to Brown Bluff at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is always a thrill to wake in the morning and see huge tabular icebergs passing by your cabin window seemingly close enough to reach out and touch. These giant mountains of ice soar high above the ship and extend so very much farther under the water.

    We arrived at Brown Buff at about 6:30 in the morning. Immediately after breakfast, we began Zodiac tours of the waters offshore from Brown Bluff and also landings on shore. Brown Bluff has rookeries for both Adélie and gentoo penguins. This late in the season, the only adults left are still molting, so they are pretty miserable. The chicks have nearly completed the replacement of their infant down with their first adult feathers. Some are even just starting to learn to swim, which means that there are a lot of leopard seals in the area. We observed a couple of leopard seals taking penguins. It is a violent process as the leopard seal in the water grabs a penguin in its mouth and dashes it back and forth against the sea surface until the feathers and skin are separated from the body.

    A great number of picturesque icebergs are off the coast of Brown Bluff and it was an awesome sight to Zodiac around and between the ice. There were crabeater, fur, and leopard seals on the ice along with Adélie and gentoo penguins.

    On shore, it was fun to watch the young penguins learn to climb and jump from the small blocks of ice that litter the shoreline. Most still have tufts of natal down, which adds to their comic appearance and clumsy maneuvering. There were fur seals sleeping all along the shore – ignoring the penguins (and us) for the most part.

    The colors and textures of the cliffs at Brown Bluff are magnificent. Formed from a volcano that created the northern-most tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, the bluffs are a mixture of browns, yellows, and blacks.

    During lunch, the ship departed Brown Bluff and sailed into the northern part of the Weddell Sea, the Erebus and Terror Gulf. This area is also known as iceberg alley for all the tabular and glacial icebergs. The ship zigzagged through the ice providing lots of photo opportunities. In this area, we observed four humpback whales and two minke whales.

    Tonight, we are sailing back through the Antarctic Sound to the western side of the peninsula and then south. Tomorrow afternoon, we plan to be back at Port Lockroy, where we had hoped to visit two days ago. In the morning, we are planning a landing at Orne Harbour.