Antarctica, day 21a: Cuverville Island and lunch

Yesterday morning we had a visit to Cuverville Island, a small but magical place I hadn’t visited since 2019. It was even better this time as the weather was a mixture of sun and overcast sky, and there was little wind (wind is the visit-killer down here).

My previous post is here, and I’ll give the same introduction (indented). Before we start, I recommend again that you click once (or twice) on the photos to enlarge them, as I’ve beefed up the pixel numbers compared the photos I posted in 2019.

Here’s a bit of what Wikipedia says about the place:

Cuverville Island or Île de Cavelier de Cuverville is a dark, rocky island lying in Errera Channel between Arctowski Peninsula and the northern part of Rongé Island, off the west coast of Graham Land in Antarctica. [JAC: it’s only 2 X 2.5 km] Cuverville Island was discovered by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897–1899) under Adrien de Gerlache, who named it for J.M.A. Cavelier de Cuverville (1834–1912), a vice admiral of the French Navy.

The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a breeding colonyof about 6500 pairs of gentoo penguins, the largest for this species on the Antarctic Peninsula. Other birds nesting at the site include southern giant petrels and Antarctic shags

Here’s where Cuverville is on Google maps; it’s a tiny island in the inlet marked below:

And a bigger map from The Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty site. Note the “landing site” (where we landed) and the adjacent gentoo penguin colonies, most of which are off limits. But there are plenty of gentoos you can visit, as you’ll see below. I saw colonies to both the north and south, walking up the cliff until we were prohibited from going further.

And a photo of Cuverville Island—not mine, but taken from the site Alli’s Excellent Adventures!:

Now we begin the post for yesterday’s visit, and the photos are mine. There’s really not much to say except that the site epitomizes what’s so amazing about Antarctica: the scenery, unmatched anywhere in the world, yet with a limited palette of colors, the huge scale of the place, and, of course, the penguins.  They’re all gentoos, and the island has one of the largest gentoo rookeries on the Peninsula.

This is what you see as you land. The penguins were all adults, many of them molting.

I love to frame shots that seem to show a penguin admiring its environment, but of course that’s a fantasy:

More penguins:

A rookery on the west side of the “landing site,” with majestic scenery and—SUN!

An iceberg. They really are this blue; I don’t enhance the blue color when I post these:

In the rookery the birds are busy attending to their toilette:

A plump resting penguin, with a bit of last year’s coat still showing:

More penguins and a glacier:

This guy was patiently sitting on a rock trying to photograph the gentoos, unaware that one was right behind him:

You can see that many of these are still molting. It takes several weeks to shed the old coat and grow in the new:

I wanted to take a vanity photo of myself reflected in an expedition guide’s goggles, with penguins in the background. I got mostly myself and you can barely see the penguins. But if you click on the photo to enlarge it, and then click again, you’ll see a pile o’ penguins behind my head.

Penguins doing their best to match the background:

If you love penguins, then you hate skuas, as they eat both eggs and penguin chicks. Penguins hate these birds, too. This is the head of a South Polar Skua (Stercorarius maccormicki), although I’m not 100% sure, as it could be an Antarctic Skua. (Readers can help here.)

There were more bergs in the bay than there are in the Brooklyn phone book (I’m allowed to say that). You can see the passengers for scale.

Moe Bergs:

The alternating cloud and sun made for some lovely views. Here’s the estimable MS Roald Amundsen awaiting our return by Zodiac:

Spot the penguin!

Here we have the tracks of three penguins who were sick of stumbling through the thick snow and decided to toboggan on their bellies. There are three parallel belly tracks, and you can see the sporadic imprints of their flippers (wings), which they use to propel themselves:

Another of my favorite photos: “Lone penguin in the vastness of its environment.” It’s the penguin equivalent of the Pale Blue Dot.

Now here’s a weird feature of many polar cruises: they offer passengers a chance to strip to their bathing suits and immerse themselves in the polar seas (-1.9° C, a bit below freezing) for a quick dip. After they jump in, scream loudly and hustle back out, expedition guides are there to wrap them in towels. For that they get an official “Antarctic Beach Club” certificate.

I don’t understand this, but so it goes.

I returned to my cabin and decided to take a selfie wearing my “landing” outfit.

Then I decided to have lunch. I wasn’t all that hungry, but wanted to show the readers what is available in the “fancy” dining room. (There’s an even fancier one that’s free for suite passengers, but costs us proles 25 Euros for a meal.) Here’s me in the Aune, sipping a diet Coke while admiring the scenery. By this time the sun was fully out.  I prefer to photograph in overcast conditions, though, for both the atmosphere and the reduced contrast.

A panorama of part of the Aune dining room:

It’s amazing to have a meal with scenery like this outside. It’s too easy to get jaded!

And my meal, with the courses quoted from the menu:

Starter: “Pasta salad with pesto, baby corn [JAC: it was adult corn!], radish, cherry tomato and parmesan.”

Main: “Local sausage fried mushrooms, leeks, mashed potatoes”:

Dessert: “Peanut cake with pear compote.”  It was good. Desserts seem to be the most consistently good course here, but that could be because I have a sweet tooth.

I had so many photos from yesterday that I’ve divided them into two bits. Tomorrow I’ll show the sights after we left Cuverville to head north along the Peninsula, and show my dinner as well.