Mar 8

Today is March 8, 2009. We are arriving in Cape Town, South Africa and will be leaving the boat today. I am excited and a little bit sad. I want to leave, but I don’t. I have been living on the boat for the past 25 days and it’s starting to feel like a second home, but I am excided to get off and start our African adventure.

Unfortunately, as we were on our early morning approach to Cape Town, the wind started to blow at near hurricane force and our boat couldn’t go up to the harbor because the harbor pilot couldn’t get out to us (the harbor pilot is in charge of parking the boat), and then the harbor closed for the day. We would have to spend another day on the boat and miss one of our days in Africa. But then, later in the afternoon, a small boat with the South African Immigration and Customs agents was able to get out to our boat and my quick thinking dad made arrangements for us to go ashore on the customs boat when they were done. We were going to leave the boat after all. I said good-bye to all of my friends and then left on the boat.

Tony (our friend and tour guide) drove us out to our hotel. Tony was our guide the last time we were in Cape Town. He was so good that my dad decided to ask him if he was available for us again, and he was! This time Tony was going to take us down the Garden Route.

 Since we left later than we planned we got into the hotel at around 11:00pm. I was really tired because we were driving the whole entire way starting at 3:00pm when we first got ashore.

The hotel we stayed at was called the Eight Bells. It was a nice little hotel. It was really called a mountain inn, though. The hotel had a little kitten and she was very cute. She was very playful too.

Once we got to the hotel I went straight to sleep. I had a really tiring day. Just like the first day of my trip. The days ahead of me are just going to get busier and busier.

Bye for Now,

Emily

Mar 5-7

This is blog days March 5-7, 2009. Somehow these days got lost on my computer, so I’ll have to re-write them and post them later. 

Mar 4

Today is March 4, 2009. Today we start our final leg of the boat trip. We have four days in open water, and then we arrive in South Africa. We have been on this boat for about three weeks. It will be strange leaving the boat. All the days seem to blend in with each other.

Today I slept in to around nine thirty, since I had stayed up late playing cards and the time keeps changing an hour ahead. I didn’t do anything until lunch though. I was just doing homework the whole time.

After lunch I played some cards. I was played skip-bo for about an hour or so. Then Sarah and I went back to her cabin to draw. I went back to my cabin shortly after that to do some homework. My dad spent most of the afternoon reading.

My dad and I went upstairs to play some cards with Sarah and her friend Karen. We played until dinner, which was only about 5 to 10 minutes away, so we only played a speed round of cards.

After dinner my dad and I played some cards. We played until the movie about polar explorers and Antarctica started. It showed the North and South Pole. It went to about 10:00, and then I went to sleep.

Bye for Now, 

EMILY

Mar 3

                

                  Today is March 3, 2009. We are going to try to land on Nightingale and Inaccessible Island which, like Tristan da Cuhna, are volcanic islands in the middle of the Southern Atlantic Ocean. We are probably only going to do a zodiac cruise around Inaccessible (because it is inaccessible!). I will just have to wait and see.

                  So, I woke up at 7:00 for breakfast and then headed to Nightingale Island. There was a big hike up to the top of a volcanic hill. Along the pathway there were baby albatross sitting in their nests. Some of the nests are right in the way of the path, so I had to walk around them while they clicked their beaks at me in displeasure. When going around the nests, I had to push though the tall tussock grass – in most places on our trip the tussock grass has been trampled by all the Antarctic Fur and Elephant seals, so it was good to see the healthy grass growing here (it grows way taller than my Dad’s head).

                  Before I reached the top of the hill. The doctor, named Jack, stopped us because he thought that we would take a long time coming back down. We had to turn around right before we reached the top of the volcano – we still had a great view, though.

                  After the hike my dad went back to the boat, and I went to work driving one of the zodiacs, shuttling people from the landing site back to the boat.  I also did a training course where I practiced driving into tight coves and backing up and turning around, driving around and through thick seaweed, and how to time driving through big swells and breaking waves – it was a lot of fun!  I had had a busy morning and was ready for a rest, so I had a quick lunch and then stayed in my cabin until the boat reached Inaccessible Island. The weather, and more important the wave heights, were perfect for a landing there.

                  Our trip leader decided to land at Inaccessible. I guess the island is accessible after all. The people call the island Inaccessible because on all sides of the island there are sheer cliffs. There is only one tiny beach there, and the weather and waves are almost always too bad to land there. While on the island, we saw lots of Rockhopper penguins, so now we’ve seen 7 different species of penguins on this expedition – Magellanic in Argentina; Adelie, Chinstrap and Gentoo on the Antarctic Peninsula; King and Macaroni in South Georgia; and now Rockhoppers in the Tristan da Cahuna Island group. Also, when we get to South Africa, we may see some African penguins, bringing our total to 8.

                  After the landing we went on a zodiac drive. Pete drove this time. We went to go see a waterfall on another spot on the island. It was cool to see the waterfall because it fell for hundreds of feet down the sheer cliff and right onto the rocky beach.

                  Once we got back on board we had tea. It was special tea though, because it was served on the Aft deck. It was nice and sunny out that day. There was a gentle breeze. I was out there for a while.

Next, I went up to the library to play some cards with some friends. We played all the way until dinner. I had dinner with them since my dad wasn’t hungry for a big meal, and then I played more cards until it was 11:00. I went to bed at 11:30. I read for a while once I got back in my cabin. I had a great day.

Bye for now, 

     Emily      

Mar 2

Today is March 2, 2009. We are landing in Tristan da Cunha today. It is known as being the most isolated community in the whole world – the nearest place with other people is the island of St. Helena, which is over 1300 miles away. There are only 300 people living on Tristan da Cunha in a small settlement named Edinburgh, which is by the ocean on the only flat area of a big volcanic island. The islanders are partly the descendants of a British garrison that was established there in the Napoleonic era, and partly the descendants of sailors who have been shipwrecked and marooned there since. In 1969 the volcano erupted on the island. Everyone was evacuated to England, but two years later all but four or five of them chose to return to their island. At the time they were evacuated, almost all of them had never left the island before. They had to leave all their animals behind when they left. Even their dogs. It was sad, but fortunately the dogs survived by eating the sheep on the island. They were all happy to see the dogs alive after two years alone.

We landed on the island in the morning. We hiked up to the top of the volcano where it erupted. It was cool to see all the lava rocks. We then walked to one pub in the town - I got a soda. While I was at the pub, I went over to a dog and petted him. He was very friendly. He acted like my dog Lucy does. It was really cute. After a while my dad and I went around town looking at different things. It was very interesting to see. We came across the post office, so I sent a couple of post cards.

In the afternoon, there was a bus to take us out to the potato fields – which is the big highlight of the town! As soon as my dad and I got there, we wanted to go back – so we decided to walk. It was about a 3-miles, so it wasn’t that bad, and we passed by some people walking to the fields. We got back to the pub and had a few more drinks.

Back at the ship, my dad and I rested in our cabin for a while, then went to the lounge to play some cards, then had dinner. After dinner, my dad said I could read for a while before bedtime, but I didn’t have a book so I went up to the library to get one. On my way back down I say Sarah playing cards with her dad. They started talking to me and I sat down and they sort of went on forever. Then they asked me if I wanted to play cards with them. I said I would ask my dad. He said yes and we wound up playing until after 11:00!

Bye for now,

Emily

Mar 1

Today is March 1, 2009. It is another sea day today, but tomorrow we’ll arrive at Tristan de Cunha. I didn’t sleep in that late today. I was awake by eight and started doing some homework. I was doing homework all the way till lunchtime. I tried to take a nap in the middle of doing my work, but my dad got mad at me. He said, “Emily you have to keep working.”

Right after lunch I interviewed the geologist about ice for one of my science projects. His name is Jason. He knows everything about geology and stuff like that. I think he should become a college teacher who teaches about geology, since he knows so much.

I asked him a little bit about how the ice got onto Antarctica. He said, “When snow falls in Antarctica it never melts. It keeps on building up and building up. In some places, the ice is 13,000 feet thick – more than 2½ miles of ice on top of the land!!! They have drilling sites on top of this ice cap where they can drill down into the ice. They do this because air gets trapped inside the ice each year as the ice accumulates over time. Using this method, scientists like Jason have collected air that is up to 500,000 years old. Soon, they hope to dig deep enough into the ice to reach air that was trapped up to one million years ago!

After that I went up to the library to play some cards with my friend, Sarah. We played until teatime. Once Sarah heard it was teatime she zoomed off to go get in line. I brought some cookies for my dad, he was reading in our cabin.

My dad and I hung out in our cabin until dinner. We watched the introduction to Tristan da Cunha on our television – if you don’t want to go to the lecture room, you can still watch them from your room. I’m looking forward to getting my feet back on dry land tomorrow (at least for a few hours).

Bye for now,

Emily

Feb 28

Today is February 28, 2009. Today is another boat day. I slept in until late morning again because we keep on moving our clocks ahead one hour, so I am staying up later and sleeping in. South Africa’s time is 10-hours ahead of Santa Barbara’s (and 5-hours ahead of the part of Antarctica where we were a few days ago). I did a little math before lunch.

After lunch we had another photo Critique, this one about our South Georgia pictures. They liked the photos that my dad and I took. I liked his too. After that we had tea. Then my dad and I went up in the lounge and we saw some pictures this man took. He put them on a certain program to make his photos look really cool and they did. His photos weren’t the best ones, but with the program they looked cool.

Once his slide show was over there was another thing to do in the lounge right after that. A man was going to make a special announcement. I think he was a comedian or something like that. He was making everyone laugh. It was funny to see the whole crowd laughing. He was making fun of this trip. He had a really heavy Scottish accent and was really funny.

Then I went back to my cabin to do some schoolwork, and then it was dinnertime. We were having a special Philippines dinner. The staff wore their traditional dresses and things as they would in the Philippines (all the kitchen staff and much of the crew on our ship are from the Philippines). The dinner was good because they cooked some of their traditional food. It was really good.

After dinner I watched a show about a National Geographic photographer who worked for the director of photography guy on our ship. He lives a crazy life full of adventure, but it seems like his family really suffers and misses him because he is gone from home so much. Then my dad and I started to watch the movie: The Bourne Identity, but I didn’t get to see all of it because I fell asleep – too bad because it was the only regular movie of the whole trip.

Bye for now,

Emily

Feb 27

Today is February 27, 2009. It is another boat day. I did homework, blog work, and wrote in my journal during the morning.

After lunch I went to go see Happy Feet. Everyone said that they liked that movie better than March of the Penguins. I think I agree with them. After the movie it was tea time, but I went up to the bridge instead because there were HUGE swells that were rocking our boat all over the place. The waves were mostly about 20 feet high and some were as high as 30 feet! The first officer was in charge on the bridge and he told me that these were the largest waves that our ship had ever been in (it is only about a year old). It was fun to be in huge seas. Every now and then all the spray from the sea would hit the bridge window. It was really fun to experience the power of the seas.

I was up there until it was time to go to Jason’s talk. He is a scientist onboard the ship and lectured about the Southern Atlantic Ocean. He said that the ocean currents and the wind currents move counter clock wise immediately around Antarctica. And so lets say a glacier from the Ross Ice Shelf broke off it would typically move all the way around Antarctica before melting and going up North, but the winds coming from the North hit the winds around Antarctica. So there are little circles of wind patterns going clockwise – and the predominant winds in the Southern Ocean move clock wise... This probably doesn’t make sense… oh well; it was still really interesting to hear from an expert.

         After the lecture, we watched a video that the under sea specialist made for us. One of the spots where he dived I was right above on the surface. Then it was time for dinner. I had a good day.

 

Bye for now,

 

Emily

Antarctic Fur Seal Puppies

Emily Sanborn 3:57pm Feb 28th Antarctic Fur Seal Puppies Here's a link to a video about cute fur seal pups

Feb 26

Today is February 26, 2009. Today is a full day at sea. These days can be a little boring for me, but I also get time to catch up on schoolwork. We also have a lot of presentations, which are mostly very interesting.

Today I didn’t really do anything until lunch. That was when I got up and was ready to start the day (sea days are also great for catching up on sleep!). After lunch I went to go see the movie: March of the Penguins. It was a good film.

I learned from the movie that there are fewer male emperor penguins than females. The males have to spend the cold winter huddled together far from the sea for about 2 months while they incubate the eggs from their partners. They go without food for about 4 months. As soon as the females come back to the see the newly hatched penguins have a reunion then the males hurry off to the sea. This is probably why there are fewer males then females because the males are so hungry some of them don’t survive the walk back out to the sea.

For the next couple of months while the chick is still growing the parents will commute from feeding the chick to going out to fish in the sea. The walk to the waters edge becomes a smaller and smaller distance each time because it is summer and the pack ice is melting.

After the film it was tea time. I took a few cookies and went back up to my room to work on some math and science schoolwork. About 2 hours later the video expert on the boat gave a preview of the film of the trip we are making to the Antarctic. I only saw myself once, but my dad was in it three times.

He also showed us some of the equipment he is using for the movie. There is a special microphone that is really fluffy and the penguins think that is food, and he says that they are always pecking at it. Also he has this pad for the video camera that he uses. He puts it down on a surface and puts the camera on top of it and it holds the camera still. He went through two cameras on this trip so far! One died on him while were in South Georgia, so one of his friends lent him there camera… or something like that. He said that maybe the cold affected it somehow. Also the batteries of the camera get used up in a colder place much faster than a warmer place. He always carries extra batteries for his camera just in case. He knows everything about videos.

After the presentation I went down stairs to have some dinner. Then I did a little more schoolwork and then I went to sleep. That was it for today.

Bye for now,

Emily

Feb 25

Today is February 25, 2009. This is my last day in South Georgia. Then the boat will be out at sea for four days. They will be playing a lot of movies during that day. Even “Happy Feet.” They also are going to play “March of the Penguins.” I’m also planning to interview a couple of the scientists on board for my science projects. So the sea days won’t be that bad.

I slept through breakfast today. I went straight to Grytviken. That is where Shackleton’s grave is. We toasted to Shackleton and then went to the museum that was down towards the old whaling station. Next to the museum there is a gift shop. I got a poster of one of Shackleton’s crew holding up puppies. I also got a jacket and a hat. The hat has little penguins on it. I also mailed two postcards. It was funny because at the front of the museum there was a little post box to put your mail into.

After I sent all my letters I went back to the boat. We had lunch after all the other people got on board. After lunch my dad and I went up to the bridge to see what was happening. Only the captain was up there. The winds were really strong. They were about 110 knots (and 60 knots is hurricane force). The captain doubted that we were going to be able to land today.

But lucky enough, once we reached the protected shore, the wind wasn’t blowing too hard to launch the zodiacs so we got to go to shore after all. The landing point was called Stromness, which used to be a whaling station. That was where Shackleton did his last leg of his trip of crossing South Georgia, arriving at the safety of Stromness. We got to walk up a few miles to where Shackleton and his men climbed down a frozen waterfall. It was cool to see.

After the landing we went back to the boat, ate and then went to see a recap of South Georgia. After that I went to bed. I had a good day.

Bye for now,

Emily

Feb 24

         Today is February 24, 2009. We are making three stops today. They are at Prion Island, Hercules Bay, and Grytviken. I heard that the day was going to be very beautiful.

         Today I skipped breakfast and woke right before our excursion to Prion Island. At Prion Island they have a lot of nesting wandering albatross. They are the largest flying birds in the world and also have the largest wingspan - up to 12 feet from wing tip to wing tip. They are mostly white. As they mature they turn snow white. They have black on their wings when they are younger. I saw an albatross that was almost snow white! He is older than I am! Albatross’s can live till they are well over 50. They spend almost their entire lives at sea – flying for hours or days at a time – and come ashore only to have chicks. They are amazing birds.

         After we looked around a bit we went back to the shore of the island. A little fur seal jumped in my lap! He was very cute. Pete gave us a little zodiac cruise. He took us through a bunch of rocks to see different birds and things. Once he dropped all the people off at the boat, he let me drive the zodiac.

         I got to drive through all the rocks too, to practice my maneuvering skills. It wasn’t that hard to move through the rocks. He then took me to a little cave. It was really neat. I got to drive the captain of our ship back to the boat. He had decided to make a landing and I got to drive him back. I was a little nervous. But he said I did a great job.

         I then headed back to the boat I had a good morning. After lunch we were going to go to Hercules Bay. We couldn’t land though because of the hurricane force winds. Instead we went to a place were there was 25,000 fur seal pups. We sat down with about 1,000 of them. Every now and then about 200 pups would come rushing onto the shore from the water. It was funny to watch so many little seal puppies.

         We sat down with them for about an hour and a half. They were very playful. Once we got back to the boat my dad and I went to the lounge to play yahtzee. It was fun because Mary (our 92 year old friend from the boat) came down to play with us too. We played until the recap started. Once the recap of the day was finished it was time for dinner. I had a good day.

 

Bye for now,

 

Emily

Feb 23

Today is February 23, 2009. We are going to make three landings today. One is right before breakfast and one is right after breakfast and the third is right after lunch. I am excited for the landings, because on the second landing there is a nice hike you can do.

Today we had a 6:00 wakeup call. Everyone was going to the landing, but the winds were too strong. They were hurricane force. It was too much for the zodiacs to handle – they can flip in high winds. So I fell back to sleep till breakfast. Right after breakfast we pulled into Godthul.

In Godthul there are wonderful places to hike. We took one there that went right up a steep hill through the tussock grass (which is strong and you can hold on to it). It was a little muddy, but it was fine. There was a lake on the other side of the hill. It was very wonderful. We walked up to a waterfall to take some pictures. South Georgia is WAY different from Antarctica – where it is so cold that no plant life can grow.  During the hike, one man climbed up a HUGE rock. It was very tall and steep. My dad took pictures of him for him. I imagine that it was very windy up on the rock.

         When we headed back down to the landing site the winds had really picked up. There were almost 100 knots! Stephanie (one of the staff members) was yelling, “Please come back to the zodiacs NOW! This is an emergency! The winds have picked up and you have to leave now!”

         On the zodiac ride back to the ship, I was nearly soaked to death. Everything on me was drenched in water. My hair was soaked. The whole ride it seemed like the zodiac was going to tip over. It was really fun though. If I could, I would have gone again. It was like a roller coaster. It was the best part of my day. Throughout the Antarctic region (which South Georgia is also a part of), you really learn to have a lot of respect for nature - as the weather can turn so quickly and so violently, that it can quickly kill you if you’re not always prepared.

Once everyone had dried off it was time to go to lunch. After lunch we went to Jason Harbour. My dad and I walked around and sat down with some baby seals. They were all up in our faces sniffing at us and biting at our boots. When some big ones came along we would clap at them, so they back off. We had a nice time.

         We walked down the beach a ways and came back through this marshy muddy land. That is where I met Sarah. We picked up Sarah and her dad from another boat during the day. Her dad is running some type of lecture series that is going to happen during the sea days while we cross the southern Atlantic Ocean on our way to Tristan de Cunha. I think that my dad said that he is from the Aspen Institute.  Sarah is 12 and in the 8^th grade. She is nice. I am glad to possibly have a friend that is about my age. Until today, I was the only kid on the ship.

         We came back to the boat and had dinner. After dinner people from a different boat of the same company as ours – National Geographic - came over for a cocktail party. It went on till about 1:00am.  A lot of people got drunk.

 

Bye for now,

 

Emily

Feb 22

Today is February 22, 2009. Today we are going to make 2 landings. There was an optional landing at 5:30am, but I decided that I didn’t want to go – my dad had a great time, though. We had breakfast, and then we zoomed off for Gold Harbour. There were a bunch of fur seals there, and a ton of king penguins. There were about 100,000! I couldn’t believe it. That was only one colony too.

Some baby fur seals were sleeping farther up the beach. My dad and I decided to go sit next to them. They were so cute. They have really big round eyes, that aren’t just for looking at and saying, how cute!!! They are used to see better at great depths under the water. They dive really far under the water – sometimes over 1000 feet deep, where it is mostly pitch black. They use their big eyes to see more clearly.

              The king penguins are pretty big. They are about as tall as my hips. They are said to be very curious. They aren’t really that curious to me though – I’ve found that the gentoo babies are much more curious then the king penguins.

              After about an hour on the beach we took a zodiac cruise. The man driving the boat is the best driver here. His name is Pete. I always love it when he is my zodiac driver. Once the cruise was done all the people got out of the boat including my dad - except me. I was going to drive the zodiac back to the beach! Now we had to shuttle people from the beach to the boat. It was great fun. On the way back from the boat when all the passengers were off I would take the boat and go driving off. I did that about 10 times. I drove the boat until everyone was off the shore.

              After all the people were on the boat again we had lunch. We had a two-hour motor until we reached St. Andrews Bay. There was going to be even more king penguins there! St. Andrews Bay is where the fourth biggest king penguin colony in the world is! There is about half a million king penguins there! That is a lot of penguins.

              My dad and I walked down the beach a little bit and sat down. Some penguins came walking up, and we sat with them for about an hour – just a few thousand king and us penguin friends. Then we walked back up to the beach. A penguin that had just finished molting was following us. Whenever we turned around we would see him and he would stop with us. It went on like this for a quarter of  a mile. Then he finally pecked at me and walked away. It was funny because he walked all that way, pecked me and went on his way. It was like someone dared him to peck me!

         I got to drive the zodiac again when I went over to the landing site. It was there when I made my first passenger trip. There were 10 passengers on the boat that I was driving. I felt a little sorry for them because I wouldn’t want an 11 year old driving me around in high winds and big waves. That was the first time I had ever used reverse. I was a little scared. After a minute or so I got used to it. Then I went back to the shore. It ended up that they didn’t need me onshore so I came back to the boat. That time I did a perfect landing. All the crew was saying good job – even the captain of the ship radioed down that he was impressed with my driving.

         I then had dinner and went to bed. I had a good day.

 

Bye,

 

Emily

Feb 21

Today is February 21, 2009. Today we had a late breakfast. Then we got to empty all the dirt in our backpacks in the mud room – this is because we are now at South Georgia and they don’t want any seeds or insects introduced on the island. Half an hour later Stephanie, who is a whale and seal scientist working on our boat, gave a lecture on seals. She talked mostly about the fur seals, since we were going to see a lot of them that afternoon.

Fur seal babies are mostly black. They are very tiny. The males are very aggressive. Even the pups are. It is really funny because a pup will run up charging you, but when it gets close to you it will run away in the other direction. Fur seals aren’t “true” seals - they are like sea lions because they have little ear flaps and can support their weight on their front flippers. True seals don’t have those little flaps and can’t “walk” on their flippers.

Once lunch was over it was a five-hour ride until we got to South Georgia. On our way there a little bird flew on deck. It was a young diving petrel. It was attracted to the boat’s light last night. One of the workers had just found it. We brought it outside and let it go. It was fun to see.

At five we arrived at Cooper Bay, South Georgia. There were thousands of fur seals there. It was amazing to see so many. My dad and I took a little hike up the mountain. All the little pups would come running down, breath on us, and then run away. It was really funny. If the seals didn’t run off you would clap your hands really loudly and they would run away. They do that because that is the sound that a beach master would make when it was coming by. All the seals knew they weren’t the beach master would run away.

When we got back on the boat we had dinner, then went to sleep. I had a nice refreshing day – it was really good to get off the ship after two long days at sea. Today at South Georgia was amazing. I hope all the days here are like this.

Bye for now,

Emily

Zodiac Driver

Emily Sanborn 3:40pm Feb 23rd Zodiac Driver Link to my Zodiac Driving video

King Penguins

Emily Sanborn 2:46pm Feb 23rd King Penguins Link to my King Penguin video

Feb 20

Today is February 20, 2009. Today is another all boat day. These days can either be boring or really fun. Today was a little boring. I woke up to have breakfast, and then fell back asleep. I woke up to have lunch. Then I went to this movie called “Encounters at the End of the World.” It was a very interesting movie. This man named Werner Herzog talked to different specialists in Antarctica about what they do and why they are here (in Antarctica). One man said that one day, man will be extinct. He said that we will all die off like the dinosaurs. That is a little scary to think about.

         Then we had a slide show of people’s pictures on the boat. The professional photographers made suggestion for everyone’s pictures – one of whom was the Director of Photography of National Geographic Magazine for 10 years, so it was a little intimidating. They really liked mine. I had a shot of baby penguins walking, a penguin bighting at my dad’s shirt, and a seal lying in the sun. “They were all good photos,” they said.   I was very proud of myself. I don’t really take that many photos. Also, I think they really liked my dad’s photos – the National Geographic guy said that one of his photos “did something that I can’t do”, which he said was the highest compliment he gives. 

Then everyone headed for dinner. For an update on my brother, sister, mom, and grandma: they got off their original boat. They are now on a different boat and are about a day away from Ushuaia where they are going to fly home. I am glad that they are okay.

 

Bye for now,

 

Emily

First Penguins!!!

Emily Sanborn 3:47am Feb 21st Link to a video of the first penguins we saw