Diving Antarctica
PLA30
Date:
3 – 14 March 2015
rd
th
Divemaster
Henrik Enckell
Dive Guides
Peter Webster, Andre Fahrni, Erin McFadden
Saturday 7th March
Port Lockroy and Jougla Point
This morning we arrived in the sheltered waters of the Antarctic Peninsula and while cruising down
the Gerlache Strait we set about organising our dive gear. The Gerlache Stait was bathed in early
morning sunshine and light and adding to this serene scene were dozens of Humpback whales
cruising and feeding at the surface. It was an amazing setting in which to set up our dive gear.
As we approached Port Lockroy, our destination for the whole day, we started donning our drysuits so
that as soon as the anchor was down we could get going. Our first outing gave us the chance to
become familiar with the Zodiac loading and lowering procedures – it’s not so simple the first time
around. It takes a few dives to figure out what goes where!
We made our way towards a small bay in-front of Jougla Point, where we could see dozens of Gentoo
penguins on shore. The bay was sheltered and shallow. The bottom was in about 3 – 5 metres and
gradually sloped deeper as we made our way out of the bay. For the majority of us this spot was the
prefect location for a check out dive as it was calm, shallow and clear.
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Diving in Antarctica for the first time is certainly not easy. There is so much gear to carry and more
gear equals more weight. Add to that your big bulky gloves and a thick hood and you realise you can’t
feel and you can’t hear… Hence finding a nice easy spot to get used to the gear – and the cold water
of course!
Everyone managed to have a good dive, although one free flow meant Liz didn’t dive but snorkelled
along the shoreline instead. It was the cold water rather than our air supply that was the limiting time
factor – as usual down here in Antarctica! Following the dive our cold hands had to be warmed up in
the Zodiacs as we were heading straight to Port Lockroy to visit the museum and to send some
postcards. By the time we were back on board the hot lunch was certainly appreciated by all of us.
In the afternoon the ship stayed at anchor off Port Lockroy while we sped off in the Zodiacs a short
distance into the Peltier Channel. Erin had found a colourful sloping ledge here in January so we gave
it a go. We found a lot more colour and life than this morning with starfish, brittlestar and colourful
sponges covering the slope. Giant fronds of kelp carpeted the ledge. These fronds can get to over a
metre wide and are often covered in limpets and snails. Both species graze on the kelp, while many
other species use the kelp for shelter.
Sunday 8th March
Dorian Bay and Petermann Island
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We awoke this morning to a more typical Antarctic scene. Cloud covered the mountaintops
surrounding Dorian Bay and there was a real chill in the air. But of course that’s exactly what we
expect here in Antarctica and the only people who chose not to dive this morning only did so because
they were busy with the other activities on offer such as snowshoeing and kayaking.
With two full Zodiacs we headed over to a small rocky island to the right of the bay. On our way
across we spotted a Crabeater seal hauled out on a piece of ice. Many of us are keen photographers
so we took the opportunity to jump in and photograph the seal from the water. Despite raising its
head a few times, the seal seemed completely uninterested in our presence. Indeed it was still lazily
laying there when we passed the ice on our way back to the ship following the dive.
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Once we had finished photographing the seal we set about diving around the island. While some
divers stayed in the shallows to try and glimpse the penguins, others went slightly deeper to check
out what was below. The site was similar to yesterday morning with a lot of kelp and small
echinoderms such as starfish and urchins. Some of us saw the scrumming stars – these starfish
collectively prey upon animals such as limpets and by working as a group they can kill one that is
much larger than them. To us they simply look like a mound of colourful starfish! Others saw the
rather repulsive looking Nemertean worms. These long white worms squirm through the water
column and along the seafloor land and look as if they’d be more suited in an alien movie than in the
Antarctic seas.
In the afternoon the ship relocated south to Petermann Island, passing through the magnificent
Lemaire Channel with its plunging mountainsides lining our route. While the rest of the passengers
either made their way ashore to see some Adelie penguins or went out kayaking with Paul, us divers
made our way along the shoreline to see what we could find. Despite Petermann being known as an
area Leopard seals are regularly seen, today we weren’t in luck. Still, there was plenty for us to see
and enjoy here. Some of us dived around small icebergs and found a stunning array of textures and
colours. Icebergs certainly take on a different light underwater. For those not so intrigued by the ice
there was a rocky wall to dive, which was covered in limpets and some of us even saw a small ice fish.
Fish aren’t so abundant down here in Antarctica, but every now and again you can spot one. They
don’t tend to move too fast though – their metabolisms are extremely slow on account of their frigid
environment and their need to conserve energy.
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Monday 8th March
Port Charcot and Pléneau Island
This morning our destination was the impressive areas of Port Charcot and Pleéneau Island. Lying
near one another at the southern end of the Lemaire Channel, these areas are packed with large
icebergs that have grounded out. As we set off in the Zodiacs for our morning dive we had open
minds and a willingness to simply see what we could find as we cruised amongst the towering bergs.
Making our way across to Pléneau Island we scanned the penguin crowded bay in the hope of
catching sight of a Leopard seal. It didn’t take long before one showed up right beside our Zodiacs!
We didn’t waste time grabbing our cameras and donning our snorkel gear. For well over half an hour
we snorkelled alongside this curious seal. The entire time the seal swam calmly around all of us,
checking us out pretty closely and looking straight down our camera lenses. It was a surreal
experience to be in the water with such a large and supposedly fearsome animal, we didn’t feel
threatened at all and the seal just seemed curious as to what we were and what we were doing. For
many of us this will become a highlight of the trip.
We all enjoyed the Leopard seal encounter so much that going for a dive wasn’t necessary. What’s
more we spent long enough with the seal to already be feeling the effects of the freezing water.
While one Zodiac returned to the ship, the second Zodiac went for another cruise amongst the
icebergs to see what else could be found. A pack of about 20 Crabeater seals were spotted swimming
alongside a large iceberg and despite trying to snorkel with these seals they are a lot more elusive in
the water than the Leopard seals and as soon as we were in, they were gone! Nevertheless we
continued cruising and found a brilliant iceberg that was low and flat enough to clamber onto and get
some great Antarctic photographs.
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Following lunch many of us were keen to get back out amongst the ice for a dive. Despite our jampacked days and our nights of camping, we weren’t stopping for an afternoon nap just yet! Diving
around an iceberg was on the cards this afternoon and there were certainly plenty to choose from.
However, picking an iceberg to dive around isn’t a case of choosing the one that looks most
impressive looking. The berg has to be very stable, which tends to mean low and flat. Luckily we
found one and many of us got to experience what it is like to dive around a massive chunk of ice.
Diving around an iceberg is always a unique experience. Icebergs can crack and pop creating
extremely loud sounds. The sight is also something to behold, the vast scale of the berg often being
the most prominent thing about it. You have to strain your neck so much to see from the top to the
bottom that you definitely run the risk of letting some water in through your neck seal! The colours
are also fascinating: the whites and blues vary in intensity and some parts appear translucent.
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Tuesday 9thfrom
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e spit of land stretches
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Yalour Islands and Vernadsky
etches of ocean: The Drake Passage (McClintock et
morning we arrived at the Yalour Islands in a flurry of snow. The snow was so thick we could
whereThis
else
on Earth where the beauty and raw,
barely make out the islands surrounding the anchorage. Of course this wasn’t putting us off going for
a dive
as none of the dive team
had everas
beenthey
here before,
a true expedition
n such
a and
tremendous
scale
doit was
along
the dive. As we
made our way across to the islands through a lot of brash ice, we heard from the other Zodiacs that a
Humpback whale mother and calf pair had been spotted. Some of us diverted over to the whales to
enjoy watching them before heading for the dive site.
dive sitethe
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northernopportunity
end of one of the islands to
and as
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expect. The island was scattered with hundreds of Adelie penguins and a few Fur seals so there was
u can expect
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a with
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of wildlife
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the surface.
Underwater
the dive was typically
the rocky walls being quite bare in the shallows due to ice scour, but as we descended to 15 – 20
nothing
of Scoresby’s
metresshort
we found more
life including anemones,phantasmagoria.
sponges, brittlestar and of course lots of starfish.
m where you are and the overall reality of the
e sky effortlessly drapes a glaciated mountain
nating off a mirrored sea surface. The only
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nterruptions to this otherwise untouched sea are
he seamless icebergs. Light emanates in every
The dive site in the afternoon proved to be a step up in terms of the typical Antarctic scene. We were
diving outside Vernadsky, a Ukrainian research station in the Argentine Islands. The dive team knew
of a good wall dive here and indeed Peter and Andre surfaced having found this extremely colourful
wall covered in sponges. Being tucked in amongst the islands must offer this area a lot of protection
from iceberg scour and perhaps this is why this impressive wall remains covered in soft-bodied life.
Following the dive we had the opportunity to visit the research station so we quickly got changed
back on board the ship and then made our way back to the Ukrainian base for a quick tour and a
warming shot of homemade vodka!
would anticipate for a polar
ainly the artist’s palette of
the seafloor enrich the white and
Wednesday 10 March
the surface. Even on a muted day,
he environment. Here in lies the
s an opportunity to encounter an
here surprises abound and the
th
Paradise Bay
Our option for a continental landing this morning resulted in only two people wanting to dive. Or
perhaps it was due to our late night partying at the Plancius barbeque… Either way, we decided to
dive the same site in the morning and the afternoon because it is known to be a good wall dive. The
site is nestled under sheer cliffs and Blue Eyed shags use these cliffs as a nesting site. As a result the
water here is supplied with extra nutrients from the birds’ guano during the summer months and if
you descend to below 10 - 15 metres there is a wealth of colourful life much like the wall at
Vernadsky yesterday.
nted durophagous predators from
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In addition to the soft-bodied organisms we keep encountering, today some of us saw an isopod for
the first time this trip. These alien like creatures tend to swim upside down looking like a giant
inverted woodlouse! The size of the isopods found here in Antarctica is a perfect example of
gigantism and they can reach sizes of 40cm, about 10 times larger than their warm water relatives.
Gigantism is possible here in Antarctica because the water is so cold it contains a lot of dissolved
oxygen, which the animals can exploit. In addition, the animals grow extremely slowly and have very
long generation times – essentially they can reach large sizes thanks to many decades of growth.
The colours are more flamboyant
environment. The underwater col
Antarctica.
The warm colours that
Thursday 11 March
blue light that reverberates in the
the underwater world continues t
beauty and pleasure of diving in A
exclusive and magnificent part of
extreme cold is a hurdle thrown o
th
Deception Island
Early this morning we awoke to find ourselves sailing through a narrow passage called Neptune’s
Bellows and into a flooded volcano. We had arrived at Deception Island! For many of us the
opportunity to dive inside a volcano was very tempting. 14 divers signed up to see what could be
found in the volcanic waters.
Making our way across to one of the rocky cliff faces we geared up and rolled in to find a shallow
bottom gently sloping deeper. Some of us found a collection of whalebones left over from the days
when Deception Island was used as a whaling station. We also found lots of pink anemones – another
of the more common species found in Antarctic waters. The anemones filter feed plankton floating in
the water column and they defend themselves against predation with stinging cells on their tentacles.
It is the extreme cold, however, th
successfully inhabiting the Antarc
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saw!an!array!of!life:!lots!of!purple!starfish!as!well!as!a!few!massive!and!sprawling!sun!
stars.!Weird!and!wacky!looking!sealife!was!abundant!amongst!the!long!kelp!fronds,!
keeping!us!entertained!as!we!made!out!way!along!the!wall.!!
!
!
!
&
Some very inquisitive Fur seals also visited many of us. Having seen them on the surface prior to
Mermaid&Point,&Paradise&Bay&
&
rolling in, we were hoping to see them underwater too and they didn’t disappoint. The Fur seals
seemed &
interested in our bubbles and sped up, down and around us at great speed. We could barely
With!deteriorating!weather,!the!afternoon!dive!was!always!going!to!be!at!‘Mermaid!
keep up with them with our cameras. Some were bolder than others – coming closer and closer as
Point’,!code!for!an!as!yet!undetermined!location.!In!the!end,!a!site!along!from!the!
they were
getting ever more confident. It is often the juvenile male Fur seals that will behave in this
morning!dive!at!‘Shag!Wall’,!below!a!copper!green!streak!in!the!cliffs,!was!chosen!as!
way. Indeed
some of these juvenile males got a bit too confident and started biting our neoprene
hoods! a!likely!candidate.!!
Here,!steep!shelves!and!cliff!sections!lead!down!to!about!20m!where!he!bottom!
turned!to!a!continued!steep!slope.!!
Beneath!the!fibrous!brown!algae,!sponges,!nudibranchs,!corals,!starfish!and!ice!fish!
to!name!a!few!added!colour!to!the!steep!rock.!Moving!the!algae!and!weed!to!the!
side!revealed!more!and!more!life.!
In! the! shallows,! shag! carcasses! provided! an! extra! food! source! for! scavenging!
organisms.!
&
&
!
7!
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Following the dive we got the opportunity to briefly go ashore at Whalers Bay and have a brief look
around the ruins. In comparosion to the colourful scenes we had just been witnessing underwater,
the entire place looks rather desolate. We had definitely experienced the more colourful side of
Deception Island this morning.
Thank you to all the divers for making this trip to the
Antarctic Peninsula so entertaining and exciting for everyone.
It has been a pleasure having you on-board and we hope to
dive with you all again in the near future.
Henrik, Peter, Andre and Erin
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