highplanesdrifters

Nightingale Island Part 2 No landing this afternoon due to some fur seals with hate in their hearts blocking our path. Based on @Fletcher description perhaps a nice zodiac cruise is just what the doctor ordered. Rocks, rocks, and more amazing volcanic rocks. For the Birders. We saw numerous Nightingale Thrush and the equally rare Nightingale Finch. Not just a fleeting glance mind you. Lots of chirping, flitting about and other birdsy things. Sights along the trip were common. We also saw a few Sooty Albatrosses. So elegant soaring about, dropping things off at their nest. Even easy to spot and enjoy for an amateur. Major Finch and Thrush spot. Seal pup nursery area. 20240316_164333.mp4 Aw, what the heck, here's another seal pup video. 20240316_164333.mp4 20240316_163739.mp4 Cave time. Yes, these are the vibrant colors we saw. The Zuber drivers were crazy about this cave. As were we. We did a double zip through . Some did 5 passes. What a delight. The video does a good job of the insane colors coming to life as your eyes and lens adjust to the darkness. The smile on Sam's face at the end tells the tale. tale. 20240316_172100.mp4 @drron29. We learned today that touching rocks from a zodiac is considered a landing. I can neither confirm or deny that we landed.😁 20240316_164603.mp4

Will check in with a few of the bird guides to get the latest bird flu info. Opinions vary. Stay turned.

Sounds exciting. On one of those risking life and limb hikes there were a few sprained ankles and a broken leg. We began passing on the slippery slope hikes. Glad you came out unscathed. Did you do a trip report? Were the Albatros nesting in the Tussock? There were a number of concerns about disturbing them.

Nightingale Island Calmer seas, no wind and bluebird skies made for another spectacular day. Nightingale here we come for a zodiac cruise. Overnight we had a long commute.😅 First up, some caves. Petral cruising for chow. 20240316_104318.mp4 Jackson Pollock was here. 20240316_112040.mp4 Some of the subantarctic fur seals have a mullet. This genetic mutation started in the 80's. Not happy about the Skua. 20240316_105934.mp4 And now the star of the show, Northern Rockhoppers. 20240316_103949.mp4 Look, @jpalbny you brought me luck. Seastack with Tristan in the background. 20240316_110418.mp4 More Rockhoppers, specially back-lit. 20240316_105015.mp4 WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO A few Petrals having a Rockhopper lunch. 20240316_113910.mp4 Remember all those supplies the ship unloaded on Tristan? Well guess who got treated to Lobster lunch. Quite possibly the best Lobster I have ever eaten. Simply steamed with a touch of butter. The way it should be! After we finished Mahomed came by and offered another round. Oh yes please! A glass of bubbly put us in heaven. And the promise of a landing this afternoon. Is all this really happening?

I agree. There is always a place out there that I didn't known needed to see. The Tristan Archepelago and Gough were much more interesting than imagined. They are more than just a remote place. Yes to C2C! Let us know what you find.

@Fletcher I am humbled. It's amazing what an amateur can do with a cell phone. Now about that spelling and punctuation.......🤣

Tristan da Cunah Tristan is an active volcanic island with rare wildlife and home to 238 British Citizens living in the world's most isolated settlement of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, far from the madding crowd in the South Atlantic Ocean. About 10 cruise ships visit the island every year. On average only 40% land passengers. There are 10 supply ships that visit every year. Weather was looking perfect. No wind, sunny, high 60's. That nasty swell reared it's ugly head. Touch and go for a bit. For some, it was a challenge to get into the zodiacs if the swell was swelling. ABs and the most excellent zodiac drivers got us to shore. YAY! We have all day here. Zodiac swell meeting. All systems go. 20240315_092328.mp4 Multiple tours were offered. Guided settlement, volcano hike, hike up the lava fields, steep hike up the lava fields, potato patch, and golf. Yes you read that right Golf! 20240315_101442.mp4 The Potato Patch was tempting. About 2 mi outside of town where folks have their weekend house and a potato patch. I am not kidding. We chose the free roam and headed to the lava fields. It was nice to explore quietly and get a sense of the beauty and isolation. Who can pass up the Most Remote Gift Shop? First things first, found the Albatros Bar. We'll hit that on the return. The volcano erupted in 1961. The Settlement was evacuated and eventually returned 2 years later to find the town intact. We chose the easier climb on the two track. Anniversary Park. I'm liking the lichen. Giant chunks of lava everywhere along with erratics from the explosion. We met Nick who has been living here for 10 months. He is making a documentary about Tristan. He advised to keep going all the way to the town dump. Nicest town dump you will ever visit. Street scenes My favorite, the grocery store. Things we're very reasonably priced. And now with some sweaty miles under our belt, time for a cold beer, Lobster tart, and cucumber sandwich. It was our first proper leg stretch on land since Port Stanley Falklands. There has been some debate about the remote island claim. We're happy to give it to them. We can say for certain the it is the most remote inhabited island that doesn't take credit cards. 😁 Silver Cloud sent some supplies ashore. Rumor is there might be a Tristan Lobster lunch onboard in our near future. 20240315_131331.mp4 Thanks Tristan for a truly lovely and special visit.

Great shot! Headed back to his room after a trip to the LT buffet?😃

I know what you mean. We've done the tours carrying flags on poles so they attack that instead of our heads.😅

These were Antarctic Terns. Not quite the amazing pole to pole journey of their Arctic cousins, only to Africa. Still a favorite of mine. Love to see your snap.

Inaccessible Island Yep, still inaccessible. Captain is kindly going to circumnavigate to give us a taste of this volcanic masterpiece. Bali Hai - Take off the parkas. Yellow billed Albatros. C'mon, you must be impressed I got a bird picture. Sun in, sun out, so many moods. After the Captian circled once with nowhere to go, he turned around and went the other way. We made lemonade. OK, maybe we ordered Champagne. Nathan, the man, the legend! Luckily this time around Inaccessible was on our Starboard side. Look at me, another bird picture. Great Northern Petral. The Antarctic Tern never gets enough street cred. It's always Albatros, Albatros, Albatros. Oh sigh, can we count our lucky stars before its dark? We circled around and with the sun at our backs the island lit up. Look at those basalt columns. Another glass, thank you very much! Caves yet to be explored.....by us. Time to gussy up for a little more fun. 20240314_173834.mp4 Sheerwater raft. There are millions here. 20240314_175100.mp4 Scan of the landscape. 20240314_175148.mp4 More fun, what a crew! 20240314_182931.mp4 Sun slipping away. Will we return? Sweet dreams. OK, maybe dinner first!

Inaccessible Island What a forbidding place. Well perhaps it is inaccessible. 20240314_143329.mp4 @FauxNom. Take the expedition gear off, guess you can stay on the sunbed. 20240314_144322.mp4

Again, you are so kind. I feel that so many contribute to CC bringing so many places to life for me. It is a small thank you when I can return the favor.

Some of us struggle more than most.🤣

Thanks Drron! For those interested here is a link to Drrons C2C journey. Always worth a look see! https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2467121-from-cape-to-cape-on-the-explorer/

At your service Ms. Nom

*cacophony It's a slippery slope with me, but perhaps one correction. 😅

Gough Island Part of the Tristan Archepelago. One of the most remote island groups in the world. Hawaii being the competition. Another one of those days where superlatives fall short. The colors, sounds, rocks, kelp, birds, plants, Rockhoppers, subantarctic fur seals thrown at you all at once. Into the land that time forgot. We landed in Quest Bay named after Shackleton's last ship. He left our world before this spot. His men carried out the expedition and named this peak after his financial sponsor, Rowlett. Hit the Google machine for the fascinating story. Mea culpa for the photos. Challenging conditions, waves, swell, and spray - and after all it is just a cell phone doing all the work. Photos can't convey the sheer cliffs as we experienced them. Imagine looking up a skyscraper coverd in plants. The volcanic mountains rise straight up from the sea floor, 5000 feet. The zodiacs with red parka clad guests give a small example of scale. Our first Northern Rockhopper Penguin of the excursion. Turns out they are good at hopping up and down rocks. Unlike all our previous excursions these Seal Pups are not used to seeing floating black things full of red. Sound on for the full cachiopy experience. 20240313_081410.mp4 20240313_082156.mp4 20240313_082926.mp4 Basalt columns in every shape and size and configuration. Twisted and turned by the ultimate artist. The more perfect the columns, the slower they cooled. A cave with a bridge. Even our Zuber drivers couldn't wait to explore this one. The entire excursion we were dive bombed by Petrals. I was sure they were going to leave a present or snatch a hat. This Petral was unphasd by us. They take an extensive bath after eating to clean away all the blood and guts. We were happy to pass by at the end of the ritual. 20240313_084326.mp4 It was hard to get near to shore for a closer look due to.massive boulders lurking about. . Nonetheless we enjoyed all the Rockhoppers dotted up the cliffs. Getting back to those colors. A lower tide exposed the kelp and related sea treats. 20240313_084231.mp4 20240313_084302.mp4 Look up, look left, look right but dont forget to look down for the kelp and the color of the water. 20240313_084700.mp4 Gough Island did not disappoint.

This has been the last 3 days. 20240311_132915.mp4 And just like that, it's time to shed the parkas and order tropical drinks! Beam me up Scotty. Well maybe a nice red. Sorry no food porn. Lighting in restaurant makes pictures awful. Sixty degrees, calm seas, where am I? Certainly not the South Atlantic or Southern Ocean. Gough Island here we come. 20240311_191440.mp4 20240311_191440.mp4

Drron, you have the best stories. Thanks for sharing. I'm calling your shove off a landing! Worth it for a seafood Chef Pia feast. BTW, word is she has left cruising for a land based life. Will see if I can get more info.

Thanks for the well wishes. I have no expectations for the next few days. We'll see if we get lucky. There is going to be some very Angry Birders if we don't get something! Captian is worried about the fog. Time for a little Xanax in the water. The Wind has once again found itself in less than ideal conditions. But she did eek out a few things in SG so perhaps worth it. Captian Freddie and EL has apologized numerous times for the early departure from SG. We are all grateful he did. Fantastic iceberg show and an extra day in Tristan area. Smart move. We also had almost no bergs on our last trip here. Captian and crew have all remarked its been a while since they have seen this much. It's what got Shackleton and many others in trouble, not listening to the whalers who knew what was out there. Dork alert. These are pics from Dan Olsens presentation, sorry for the poor quality. The slide on left shows historical tracking of icebergs in red. There is a current around Antarctica that runs counter clockwise which they track and then spin off to South Georgia. The slide on the right showes the circumpolar in purple which runs clockwise. As the bergs head north of the South Shetlands they go into a spinning pattern and head to South Georgia. They are given a letter designation based on where they come from. Then numbered and more letters as they break apart. A satellite from the D28 smash. Tracking of A68 red. And the position of D28A, the one we did the drive by. D28 came from the Avery ice shelf. I am wondering if the Avery ice shelf is responsible for a large numeber of the jade icebergs. Time to find Dan!

You are so kind, thank you!

We are on our third sea day. It's been a hectic trip and the chill time has been wonderful. The Sea has been calm with mostly rain and fog. A patch of blue appeared briefly yesterday. Gough Island is the plan for tomorrow. In the meantime how about a few more Icebergs. They have been particularly plentiful and spectacular this trip. Many are from D28 which smashed into the continent a few times and broke off a few more. Dan Olsen, explained that icebergs are a very important part of the eco system. They carry nutrients, disburse them to the Phytoplankton which feed the krill, which feed almost everything else. They also create upwelling as they melt which brings even more nutrients to the surface. These lovelies were on our way to Fortuna Bay. What a backdrop. Add to this the Penguins, seals, Albatros feeding and fliting about. Sensory overload. A long moment of Zen 20240308_133757.mp4 Leaving South Georgia Captian Freddie slowly made our way our way to D28A, 13x15 mile biggie while passing hundreds and hundreds of bergs. A most relaxing sea day until one attempts to go outside and photograph in the wind and sleet. 😄 These neon colors are as we saw them. 20240309_150651.mp4 D28A 20240309_151240.mp4

Colour, take that spellchecker . I've long since stopped caring about my spelling mistakes and typos. I'd never get a post up. Sorry to all those who are stickers, I'm probably nails on a chalkboard. We're really just getting in to the true C2C part. It's already been quite a trip. As mentioned we were reluctant to come back to Antarctica and South Georgia because the first time was so perfect. This time has been even more incredible. So much so, we will never be able to return. Except maybe in 2027, don't have anything planned for that year yet. 😁

After hightailing it out of SG we sailed through Icebergs extrodinare. One of the most fascinating was the Jade Iceberg. Dan Olsen gave a great talk on Glacier Ice. He is a crowd favorite. Intelligent and one of the funniest people on the ship. Here's the latest science. Hope you enjoy. Jade icebergs are formed under very different conditions, when mineral-rich seawater freezes to the underside of an ice shelf in layers, then eventually breaks off and floats away. These jade bergs contain layers of the pure blue-white ice from the glacier and greener ice below, formed from frozen seawater. Some icebergs of blue glacial ice contain green stripes of marine ice, formed by seawater freezing up into basal crevasses. A number of theories have previously been put forward about why frozen seawater turns such a remarkable shade of green, including the presence of dead phytoplankton or dissolved organic carbon. The researchers found that these materials were not present in large enough amounts to explain the colour. The scientists also believe that these mineral-rich ice blocks could play a role in promoting biological activity in the Southern Ocean, by transporting nutrients to areas where iron is in short supply. Iron is an essential trace nutrient for the growth of marine phytoplankton, which are the tiny plants at the base of the Antarctic food web. Here's the eye candy!