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January 18, 2005 | 11:20

Cape Horn

Dear Journal,

Three blasts of the Andrea’s bell signaled our exit from the Drake Passage. Cape Horn, Chile—civilization—was straight ahead, the mountains in the mist a welcomed sight after a full day of navigating the open, angry Southern Ocean; on our port side was the Pacific Ocean, to our starboard, the Atlantic. The Andrea, twelve miles from shore, turned eastward, heading for the Beagle Channel, Argentina, avoiding Chilean waters—safety reasons. A poem, remembering the sailors who lost their lives to the waters surrounding Cape Horn, was read over the ship’s intercom:

I am the albatross that waits for you—at the end of the Earth.
I am the forgotten soul of the dead sailors who crossed Cape Horn
from all the seas of the world.
But they did not die in the furious waves.
Today they fly on my wings to eternity in the last trough of the Antarctic winds.
Poem at Cape Horn

Drifting Icebergs and Musical Penguins
January 13, 2005 | 11:00

Drifting near Paulet Island

Dear Journal,

This morning the Andrea carried us to Paulet Island; a volcano covered with Adélie penguins: hundreds-of-thousands of Adélie penguins. As the Zodiac boats chugged towards the beach, groups of the penguins swam around us, shooting in and out of the water like dolphins. A few of the funny looking black birds waddled up the ski-jump-like slopes of a one hundred and fifty foot iceberg. Looking like drunken old men, they swayed left and right with both wings extended.

The intense stink of penguin poo welcomed the landing parties at the stone beach. Car-sized chunks of ice were all over the shore, bluer than 2000 Flushes. Steeps of the island towered over one thousand feet in some places, but that didn’t stop the Adélie, who built their stone nests many hundreds of feet up. We waded through the mass of penguins, reaching the ruins of a stone hut constructed in 1903 by a party of sixteen men who were forced to survive there after their ship, The Antarctic, was destroyed. The grave of Ole Wennersgaard, who died on 7 June 1903, was still visible from within the rubble. Nesting penguins were all over the rocks of the grave. It was here that I caught my first view of a penguin guano squirt. What a sight!

The penguin motion over the loose rock plates made a strange music, like a small pots-and-pans band playing in the distance. A freshwater lake filled the volcano’s basin, but few penguins would swim in it. I don’t blame them; the water was filled with guano run-off. The natural beauty of the island and its surroundings was magnificent, indescribable. We were experiencing the harmony of nature: the jagged volcanic cliffs, the drifting icebergs and the musical penguins.

About Winter Term in Antarctica

About the M/S Andrea

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