Chapter Four - Ice & Seals

One of the mainstays to keep you out of mischief was numerous walks around the point, sounds a bit like a jolly trip along the prom for an ice cream when I was a kid, anyway during the many circuits it was fascinating to see how the scenery changed.

I found this particular berg around the back of the point fascinating, I just couldn't believe that nature had created the caves without any human interference & it was a real disappointment when the floe's released thier grip & it finally broke apart & drifted off.

This was just one of the many incredible peaks, about 9,000 or so feet, seen across South Cove forming part of Graham Land, in the foreground is Leonie Island which regrettably we never got chance to visit.

On arrival/during November & early December, it was pretty much ice in all directions until distant mountains got in the way, vast bergs were trapped immobile in the ice but its difficult to put any sort of scale on to things when its like that, it was only as the big melt set in & the dinghy's finally managed to get in the water that there was something to scale them against, then you really realised just how big they were, particularly when you were bobbing about in the boat beneath them. As said over the months that followed walking around the point became a pretty regular activity.

During the many treks around the point as well on trips to Lagoon or Anchorage Island there was ample opportunity to get close up to the local & visiting wildlife, pretty much a constant over my time South were the Weddell seals, unlike the Antarctic Fur seals which massed on the shores towards the end of the season the Weddell's seemed to spend the majority of thier time assure sleeping, in fact they do a mighty fine impression of a well fed moggy curled up in front of the hearth, they smell just as bad as well, the only time you saw them move with any great urgency was when there was a Leopard seal in the vicinity. Actually it was quite amazing how these, & their bulkier cousins, the Southern Elephant seal's seen over on Lagoon Island, could be so clumsy on land yet look so graceful in the water.

It wasn't until towards the end of the season that the Antarctic Fur Seal started to show itself, when they finally did show themselves they did so by the hundreds, & yes, like thier cousins, they too are particularly odorous. The bulk of the furries that visited Rothera were fairly young & whilst vocal tended to have a bark worse than thier bite, occasionally however you'd come across the odd furry hidden by rocks who obviously thought all humans delivered the mail, fortunately the post office won.

I got a nice surprise one evening when I spotted amongst the gathered furries a golden morph, admittedly it wasn't that golden, more of a dirty magnolia really, still at only 1% of the Fur Seal population it was pleasing to see.

As noted above we managed several jaunts over to Lagoon Island, this is a fairly small low lying rocky outcrop that seems to be popular with adolescent male Southern Elephant seal's, apart from the farting & belching, which they do especially well, these fellows do a fair impression of deflated inner tubes & seem to be happy to spend most of thier time crapping on each other & occasionally butting heads, as said though, in the water they actually look graceful. As said most of the Elephant seals seen were on Lagoon, however you did get the occaisional fella investigating the pleasures of the Rothera, later in the season several spent a day or so hanging around the site whilst they moulted, they almost look embarrassed to be seen in such a state.

Whilst on Lagoon & Anchorage we also managed to catch sight of a couple of Crabeater seals, however it wasn't until departing Rothera aboard the RRS JCR that we saw considerable numbers of Crabeaters amongst the remaining ice floe's around Wyatt, Day & Hansen Island & into Hanusse Bay.

Unfortunately the chap I really wanted to see first hand was the Leopard seal, on several occasions we witnessed his handy work when young Weddell seals could be seen nursing fresh & bloody wounds however only on one occasion did we get anywhere near a Leopard & then it was taking time out to bask in the sun.

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