No. 2 - Connecticut Suburbs
For the next couple of days we will be working at a place called
Cape Shirreff, a thumb-shaped rocky headland jutting into Drakes
Passage from the north side of Livingston Island - one of an
archipelago called the South Shetland Islands that lay along the
western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Livingston, like all of
the major islands in this group, has a thick snow and ice cap
drained by glaciers that fall down 300-foot rock cliffs to the
water's edge. The glaciers end, however, at the base of the
thumb leaving the Cape free of permanent ice. In the late spring
and summer huge swarms of krill drift through the South Shetlands
heading for deeper water to spawn. Their passage is slowed by
eddies in the ocean currents north of the Cape creating an ideal
place for breeding colonies of birds and seal rookeries -
ice-free ground and a ready supply of fat, juicy krill weighted
down with eggs. Two years ago we found this place when exploring
the islands for an alternative to our Seal Island site and last
year we built a camp here.
If Seal Island is the Calcutta of breeding colonies, Cape
Shirreff is the Connecticut suburbs. Rock outcrops are separated
by rolling hills and glacier-gouged valleys, penguin colonies are
spread out and smaller (ranging in size from 100 to several
hundred parental units), and there are places where one can walk
without slipping in a quagmire of mud and guano. Even the
predators are more polite: skuas and giant petrels will swoop
down from their high perches and drag an unprotected chick some
distance away, rather than wait at the edge of the colony for an
opportunity to eviscerate a chick in front of its helpless
parent. Most remarkable are the numerous small bays with rocky
beaches and tide pools - perfect for raising fur seal pups.
About 5,000 were born this year at the Cape. The passing seas
also dump whale carcasses and the shores are littered with their
bones.
And like all first class suburbs on the water, the Cape has its
own marina. Rock reefs fringe the coast making access dangerous
if not impossible, but there is a gap in the reef that leads up
to the shore and provides protection while landing a boat in all
but due easterly winds. It can be a bit hairy trying to find the
hole in fog and a standing sea, but the approach is much
preferable to landing though the surf at Seal Island. All in all
an enchanted place, and much more hospitable to humans than Seal
Island.
-Roger