Thursday, June 21, 2012

South America and Antarctica 20 - Enterprise Island

Enterprise Island is covered in snow, so we got a Zodiac tour of the area, which was a major center of the whaling industry from 1916 -1930.





















Once again, the Zodiacs organized themselves in preparation for taking on passengers.

















These scenic shots do look much better larger. Click on on any of them for a larger view. The boat ahead of us heads off to Enterprise island.















It's hard to image just how large some of these ice flows are.
Notice how the humans, which were included for scale, are completely dwarfed by the small part of this ice sheet that is visible in the frame.















If you click on this image and look at the larger version of this frame, you'll more easily see the bird hanging out on the rock above.















Then we came around a corner and found a Chinstrap Penguin hanging out on the rocks as well. It was the only Chinstrap Penguin we were able to see on this trip.















I think these are Cormorants. But notice the old rusting anchor post on the left, and other, mostly rusted out, anchor pins on the right. These were used by the old whalers to tie up the whale oil processing ships during the summer months.















This rusting hulk is what's left of the Gouvernoren, a whaling ship that caught fire in January, 1915. It had a full load of whaling oil on board at the time. One can only imagine how long that took to burn out.





















Around the corner from the Gouvernoren, we saw this little guy heading up a huge hill. It appeared to us that he was following in the tracks of someone else. If he was following those footsteps, he had a long, unenviable hike ahead of him.















All too soon it was time to head back to the ship.















This shot was included so that you can see how efficiently they were able to move us on or off the Zodiacs. In this case, we stepped off the Zodiac, dipped our boots into a sanitizing bath, and then headed up the stairs, away from the loading platform.















And then it was off through the icebergs to Cuverville Island.

Continue on to Post 21: Cuverville Island, by clicking here.

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