4 Months in the Antarctic Peninsula / Part 2

After the first month, my routine began around six in the morning, I looked out the window to see if the usual penguin was there, I tried to identify if it was female or male, if their eggs were there, and if there was any broken shell. Then I headed to the kitchen from where I could also watch the same pair of penguins, this time in the company of the chef, and so throughout the season we were able to observe the complete process of the birth of the Papua penguins, as well as the moment when predators arrived that ended the life of one of the chicks and then during the months of February and March the development of the surviving penguin that was already bigger and more independent to approach the sea. There were hundreds of Papua penguins around the entire island who had extraordinarily created several paths to reach from the sea to their nests, some of them even on the mountain tops, next to them and strategically the Skuas, the main predators of the chicks, also began to hatch. The inhabitants of the island covered a large part of the Antarctic biodiversity, from a colony of blue-eyed cormorants, nesting sites of Wilson's Petrels, a pair of Giant Petrels, several Antarctic pigeons, Dominican seagulls along with their nests, terns, some straggling Chinstrap and Adelie penguins, and a varied list of aquatic animals. The South Bay has had since 1987 about a hundred hectares of Specially Protected Antarctic Areas (ASPA), right in front of the Base, which has allowed for years the periodic visit and just a couple of meters away, of humpback, minke and sei whales, leopard seals, crabeater seals and fur seals, as well as an incredible underwater world of special interest to several groups of scientists who arrive at Base Yelcho to dive for a few weeks to investigate the Benthos or species that inhabit the underwater environment.

One of my favorite things during December was being able to watch the sunset between the mountains of Cape Herrara right where Winke Island ends to the south, after finishing the day's tasks I could spend hours looking at the horizon, and see how a set of red, purple and orange lights and reflections moved over the Bismarck Strait until they touched the tongues of the glaciers of Winke Island and Doumer Island until they reached a dusk and started a new day without having had a single moment of complete darkness, and without even realizing that it was already dawn.

As a photographer, it was inevitable to try to capture everything and without much hesitation, every free moment, combined with the long hours of light, allowed us to go out and explore the vibrant world around our Base. I had the essentials for landscape and wildlife photography, a tripod with the possibility of converting it into a monopod, a remote control, several low-capacity but high-speed writing memory cards, a couple of extra batteries, a polarizing filter and a UV filter, a 200-500mm telephoto lens plus an 18-140mm zoom lens, along with a pair of warm gloves, goggles, bandanas, goggles, snacks, phone, the important VHF radio, a pair of snowshoes, and the crucial company of some motivated companion. All this was the perfect recipe for spending long hours in the field capturing and learning from the wildlife of Doumer Island.

After thousands of photographs from the departure from Punta Arenas to the last weeks of February, my camera decided to stop working completely (already on the continent and after its repair I would know that the shutter had collapsed due to a factory defect) however, the records of hundreds of hours in the snow enjoying the privilege of being an Antarctic worker. Some moments have become iconic memories of my wildlife catalog, such as several charismatic portraits, including an Adelie penguin staring at me on Biscoe Island while caring for its chicks or a group of sleek Papua penguins in formation among the snowdrifts, or also those 1 in a million moments of a leopard seal in the early days of March eating a Notothenia (a type of Antarctic fish that makes up only 4% of its diet). Others were imposing landscapes difficult to describe in words, as they are simply sublime.

After baking hundreds of loaves of bread, lunches, dinners, and helping in the kitchen for several months until the departure of the last scientists and changing roles to then support in construction tasks and occasionally in navigation, without neglecting the hundreds of hours of exploration as a photographer. Finally, on March 25 of that year, when the weather was very unstable and the snow was taking over the Yelcho Base again, we received the radio call that the Lautaro Ship would come for us to take us to King George Island where we would embark again on the Classic Oscar Viel to return to the port we had left almost 4 months before. With this call, we began the closing of our summer home, which had noticeably grown thanks to the team's effort to improve the infrastructure. Also, the penguin colonies had increased with the arrival of the new chicks that were already larger, with their definitive fur and ready to enter the sea, the leopard seals became more frequent in the bay before the feast of new penguins, and everything around seemed to be heading towards what would be the beginning of the Antarctic winter. By March, we already had several hours of darkness, and the weather was practically unpredictable. Our time on the island was ending to make way for hibernation and return to the South American continent awaiting another Antarctic summer. Undoubtedly, another successful season for those for whom Antarctica becomes a passion.

Then at the end of 2018, opportunities allowed me to spend 3 months at Union Glacier Camp 1000 kilometers from the South Pole and at the end of 2019 until April of this year to return again to the Antarctic Peninsula as a consolidated logistician, clearly stories for the following polar chronicles.