WE THREE KINGS.....

These three King Penguins were photographed on St. Andrew's Beach on the islands of South Georgia, which is about 1000 miles south east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

I am now home in the Iowa version of Antarctica, and ours here looks and feels more intense than it was there!! The Three Kings and I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a prosperous New Year!

This will end the postings to this blog and trip. It was an incredible adventure in every way, and the stories and photos here will help me and other relive it any time we would like. Thanks for stopping by.

Coming HOME to Ames !

We are leaving Santiago, Chile for an evening flight to Miami, and then as Tuesday progresses I will proceed to Dallas and then back to Des Moines and home, one day later than had been planned originally. We have had a very relaxing day here in Santiago, just hanging around in our nice rooms at the Sheraton here and enjoying delicious meals at their breakfast and luncheon buffet. We are all ready to go home and be home and soon my 22,000 mile journey will be over. This blog will continue for a few months as I catch up and add other things that I wanted to include or could not becuase of the expense of satellite internet time to do so. I will go home to lots of snow and cold, and the warm parka that I used in Antarctica will be carried with me from Miami to Des Moines, so I can have it on my return to Ames. It IS good to be coming home!

Easter Bunny did not make it today....

Unfortunately the bunny did not come to Easter Island today, and our airplane home did not come here either! Due to foggy weather in Santiago our flight was cancelled today, so we are going to be coping with lots of changes. There was a group scheduled to come to our hotel today, that was on the plane we would have left on as we went home, and since the flight was cancelled, the hotel let us have their rooms they would have had. Also the special dinner they were going to serve the new group, will now be eaten by us. As it stands now our flight out will be on Sunday about 11 AM, and then to Santiago about five hours later, and from there to Miami and all the rest. So far the only scheduled flight I have is the first one out of here, so a bit later I need to see what I can do about the rest of the trip. I am sure I may end up spending one additional night in Santiago or Miami, before I return to Ames. Time to get hopping!

Scenes around town...

Here a few photos taken around Hanga Roa, the city where we are staying, and for that matter the only city in Easter Island. It has a population of about 4,000, and is situated on the leeward side of the island. The first photo is the scene you would see after walking down the steps from the airplane, and heading into the terminal for your baggage. The next four photos are taken on the grounds of my hotel, the Altiplanico. Each room is in a small bungalow type building with its own outdoor shower and large bedroom space. My bungalow was the one to the left, and the bananas you see growing, were doing so right in front of my building. Another view shows more banana trees in front of the ocean view as seen from the front of our hotel lobby. There are no windows or doors on this side of the lobby, and I am admiring the calm ocean right now!

The red Canna flowers were a distinct color contrast against the lava wall. Obviously lava is a most plentiful stone on this island and is used for lots of purposes. The boys pounding the Eucalyptus logs on the street were doing so to remove the bark so the poles could be used to make a fence and railing in the building near where they were working. The last photo is that of a painting hanging in a museum here, and it depicts the area shown earlier on the blog posting that featured a couple of single Moai statues along with some shots of wild horses.

Unfortunately I have much to write about, and photos to process and post here, but I am out of time. We leave here in an hour or so and do some more sightseeing until lunch time, and then we travel direct to the airport to catch our flights. In my case, four flights for a duration of 16 hours as I travel from Easter Island to Santiago, Chile, to Miami, to Dallas, to Des Moines, and finally making my way to Ames on Sunday afternoon….all in one continuous trip with waiting times in-between flights. I hope to sleep on the plane and if not I will be writing more notes to place here, when I resume blogging next week. Enjoy.

Magnificient Moais !!!

Today we saw some magnificent Moai statues...here are a few photos...

First Views in Easter Island

Here are some of the first images as we approached and explored Easter Island on Wednesday. It was exciting to see some land after flying over open water for five hours! It was hot and humid here when we landed and, nearly the total opposite of being in Antarctic waters a few days ago. The temperature was nearly 80 degrees with a humidity level to match. It seems impossible to be sitting out in the middle of this giant Pacific Ocean on this small bit of land, thousands of miles from everywhere, and be able to write these thoughts to you and in a few minutes have them beaming out to anyone who looks at my blog.

Our hotel is very unique and I will post some more photos of it very soon. Each room is in a separate kind of bungalow, with a large king bed (in my case) built up on a platform in a large room with a high vaulted ceiling that has a continuously running ceiling fan to help keep things cool. The furniture and surroundings are simple and stylistically basic. My shower is unique in that it is outside, and when I open the locked door to go into it, I can look up and see the sky. There is a privacy fence around it, and it is a fun and very exhilarating way to shower! The water tank is on the roof, and it is heated by solar panels, and gravity does the rest. We have a breakfast buffet here each morning, and the lunch and dinner are eaten out, all provided by the tour company. Our local guide is much fun and tells many stories to us as we travel about and as we eat together. Tonight he and his wife are inviting all of us to his home where we will have dinner. Later in the evening we will all go to a Polynesian dance program that should be fun and colorful.

The first Moai we saw were some of the oldest ones here, and thus looking a bit more worn than the web image I posted earlier. We will see those as well sometime within the next two days, and I will find their successive variations interesting and exciting. They are massive in size and scope and it boggles my mind to visualize them being carved in a volcanic quarry near here, and then moved by hand into place and positioned where they were. Those you you see in the photos were excavated from where they were and placed on the altar platforms where they have stood for many decades. All of the Moai statues face inward towards the land, to the people they represent and to the land which created them.

We have frequent showers here in this tropical climate, but they do not last long, and as our guide says we just look to the other sides of the island, most of which are visible, and we just go there instead. We did so yesterday as the large altar we were heading for became enveloped in rain, so we just turned around and went a few miles in the opposite direction to the site you see illustrated here.

There are wild horses here that just run around like they own the place, and in a sense they do, for no one actually owns them! A small herd of ten or so galloped through the area where these statues were and it was fun to see them do so. There are also free range chickens that go where they want, and begin to crow in the early morning (the roosters at least) so I have a built in alarm clock!

The landscape, the town, the buildings, and the cultural pace of this area reminds me so very much of the rural areas of Hawaii I have seen, away from the tourist cities, and exhibiting a more basic and mellow life style. The buildings are fabricated simply with materials from here, and often appear to be not yet quite finished. There is much use of plywood, concrete blocks, and logs and poles for support and decorations. Many homes have their own smaller Moai statues just for decorative purposes, and there are gorgeous and colorful flowers everywhere. There is a banana tree growing right outside my sliding door/window that has about 50 bananas on it at the moment slowly getting ripe.

So today (Thursday) we will have breakfast here, and then about 9:30, our guide Elmundo will pick us up in the mini bus and we will be on our way to adventures, that I hope i can post here before I leave. It is now about time for the first light of dawn in the sky, which of course I will try to photograph if I can.

Safe and Sleepy in Santiago...

Our band of 18 Easter Island adventurers arrived safely in Santiago, Chile this afternooon, and after a shuttle from the airport to our hotel, and a lovely dinner it is time to rest, take a soaking bath, and repack for and early departure (7 AM) from the hotel as we go to the airport to connect with our flight. The flight will take about 5 1/2 hours to travel the 2300 miles to the mysterious island with the stone heads! I am not sure if there will be any internet connectivity there at all, but if possible I will try to post something from there before I start the long return trip back to Ames, Iowa.

I am very much aware of the severe snow and blizzard situation in Iowa and in the midwest just now, and while I am glad I am in the opposite climate, my heart, head and responsible nature wants me to be in Ames to help cope with it all. I am sure there will be several other snows for me to deal with after I return. Until then here is a web image of one of the stone heads that I will be seeing soon.

Arrived in Ushuaia

Our ship arrived safely ontime about 10 PM on Monday evening, and we are spending the night on her in our rooms as we are tied up to a pier. Tuesday we have some city tours and a lunch here, and then our charter plane returns us to Santiago, Chile, where my shipmates spread out to a variety of places all over the world. About 18 of us will stay in Santiago, spending the night there in the hotel we used before, and then Wednesday morning departing for Easter Island. I am not sure what my internet link will be there, and if I can be online for at least one post I will do so.

This blog will continue well into the New Year as I complete other aspects of the trip that I have not had time to describe so far. Thanks to those of you who are reading, learning, and exploring with me.

Macaroni With No Cheese!

These little fuzz balls are Macaroni Penguins, so called for obvious reasons I hope. If you use your imagination a bit, it does look like they have pieces of macaroni stuck to their head. You can read more about them in one of the early blog sections on penguins, but for now I will just tell you they are LOUD, and not a cute and cuddly to me, as the Chinstraps were. None the less they sure were fun to watch as they hopped around on the rocks carvingn out their space.

One of the favorite stories I enjoyed reading to my special Grandson Charlie, dealt with Macaroni Penguins, and as I saw them I thought of the many times he had sat on my lap as we enjoyed the story, sometimes not finishing it as he fell asleep on my chest.
Charlie....I love you and miss you, and this blog post is dedicated to you!!

Historic Grytvikyn in South Georgia

A cluster of old, historical and rusting buildings that once was a giant whale processing factory stands today as a reminder of times gone by. Hundreds of men worked and lived here, as they processed whales for their oil, meat, and bone meal. Search the place on Google and you can learn more about how expansive it was in the early 1900s. The government of South Georgia is just letting it decay in place, which may cause it to look a bit unkept, but yet it provides some interesting subjects for photos. Old machines, factory processing equipment, ships, harpoon guns, tools, and many other numerous items are there in the same place they were when things were shut down. The penguins and seals do not mind, as they walk around or lie around on the beach areas like they own the place! There is an extensive and very wonderful museum there that is worth seeing, a unique and quaint country church built in 1913 which is still used by a small congregation, and the cemetery for several of its former residents including, Earnest Shackelton, famous Antarctic explorer from England. You can read more about him in some of the first postings on this blog if you keep going back into "older posts." Besides these facilities a short distance away on the edge of the bay is the British Antarctic Research Station, one of several new facilities in the antarctic operated by the UK.

The Beaufort Scale becomes REAL in the Scotia Sea...

The Beaufort scale is an empirical measure for describing wind intensity based mainly on sea conditions. Its full name is the Beaufort Wind Force Scale. It became very real to us as we traversed the Scotia Sea between South Georgia Island and the Falkiland Islands on Wednesday, December 2, 2009.

The scale was created in 1805 by Irishman Sir Francis Beaufort, a British Admiral, and hydrographer. At that time naval officers made regular weather observations but there was no scale and so they could be very subjective..one man's "stiff breeze " might be another's "calm conditions." The initial scale from 0 to 12 did not reference wind speed numbers, but related qualitative wind conditions to effects on the sails of a man of war, then the main ship of the Royal Navy, from "just sufficient to give steerage" to "that which no canvas sails could withstand." The scale was made a standard for ship's log entries on Royal Navy vessels in the late 1830's.

The scale was adapted to non-naval use from the 1850's, with scale numbers corresponding to cup anemometer rotations. In 1906, with the advent of steam power, the descriptions were changed to how the sea, not the sails, behaved and extended to land observations. Rotations to scale numbers were standardized only in 1923. George Simpson, Director of the UK Meteorological Office, was responsible for this and for the addition of land based descriptors. The measure slightly altered some decades later to improve its utility for meteorologists.

The Beaufort scale was extended in 1946, when forces 13 to 17 were added. However, Forces 12 to 17 were intended to apply only to special cases, such as tropical cyclones. Nowadays, the extended scale is only used in Taiwan and mainland China, which are often affected by typhoons.

That said, our ship, "The National Geographic Explorer" endured winds and sea conditions equivalent to a Beaufort Scale rating of 8 in the early morning hours of Wednesday, December 2nd, which accounts for the severe tossing around all of received for several hours in the morning hours. The Captain told me that at the most severe point we were encountering waves of 40 feet in height from their trough up to the top of the wave. The total effect of the forces of the sea and the wind upon the ship were at approaching hurricane levels. One adventurous photographer (no, not me!!) was standing at the bow, and as a BIG wave crashed over the bow and him, he got drenched and so did his Canon SLR camera, which was shorted out from the moisture. Its prognosis is currently undetermined. As the day progressed the conditions varied but continued to get better. By midnight on December 2nd, the Beaufort scale had lowered to 4, but was still it was still a very bouncy ride, and it looks as if it will be that way for the rest of the night and into tomorrow.

The Kings of St. Andrew's Beach...

St. Andrew's Beach in South Georgia is home to the largest colony of King Penguins in the world. The day we landed on the vast beach there we were greeted by hundreds of thousands of adult and juvenile King Penguins, and countless Elephant Seals. A reasonably accurate count of the Kings on that beach approached half a million birds. The adults in their black and white tuxedos with beautiful orange and yellow color accents were easy to identify. The large brown penguin looking fur balls are the juveniles, still considered their young, and still cared for, even though some of them at this stage are larger than their parents. The juveniles still have their small chirpy voices and not the loud raspy calls they will have a few months from now, when they shed their brown feathers for the classic adult colors.

I was compelled to photograph them of course and I did so fervently, but I also enjoyed just watching them, seeing their body language, and trying to interpret their actions and intensions. Some were trying to find mates and sometimes a lovely lady had more than one fella interested in her, and then troubles broke out. King penguins fight mainly by stretching up and looking bigger and taller and thereby tougher and more intimidating than their competitors. They walk proudly with arrogance and attempt to use chest pushes to discourage the other male. They do peck from time to time, but the flipper slap seems to be a favorite, and is reasonably effective.

At one point a King Penguin came close to me and wanted to investigate my glove. My photographer friend had me hold my hand in the air in the perfect position so it looked like I was patting the penguin on the top of his head. I was not, but it is impossible to not feel affectionate and captivated by them. I enjoyed having the special moments of the "King and I," and I hope you enjoyed them as well. You can find more specific info on the Kings on a very early posting of this blog, shown in the archive list to the right. Find the heading "BLOG ARCHIVE" and click on November, and look for a posting called, "Panoramic Plethora of Prolific Penguins."