Southern Ocean : part 1

Introduction

The story of this amazing journey starts a year ago in January 2015.

I was down at Lake Wollumboola on the New South Wales south coast photographing birds - obviously - with some good mates.

There was a colony of terns roosting on the sand and over a period of some time I managed to crawl within a reasonable distance for photography.

The sand spit was filled mostly with Little Terns however it was the couple of White-winged Terns that caught my attention as it was a species I didn't have any good images of.

I waited and captured a great sequence where a Little Tern tried to land close to the White-winged Tern and they had quite the struggle for territory.

However it was this later image that captured my eye.

The tern simply stretched its wings as a normal precursor to flight.

Nothing special in behaviour, however I was struck by the beautiful symmetry of the wings standing out against the soft blues and yellows of the lake and distant shore.

I was incredibly lucky that the judges of the 2015 ANZANG Nature Photographer of the Year competition were also struck by it.

And thanks to the generosity of Heritage Expeditions and Australian Geographic, I am writing a visual trip report on the trip of a life time.

For so long I have dreamt of visiting Macquarie Island and seeing a beach bursting with King Penguins.

This is the story of that dream.....

Day 1 - 22/12/15 - Sydney - Invercargill

Early

It's always early

One day I'm going to sleep in and start a holiday around lunchtime

One day

But not today

A long boring day of a couple of flights punctuated by a 5 hour stopover in Christchurch airport, started with a 4 on the clock. Getting the kids out of bed to see Daddy off was easier than expected and well worth it from my perspective. It will be 12 days before I will be able to tell them about our adventure face to face.

What Adventure?

The adventure of a lifetime

A trip to the sub-Antarctic Islands with Heritage Expeditions on their "Galapagos of the Southern Ocean" voyage.

The fear of rough weather and sea-sickness losing to the excitement and anticipation of Penguins, Albatross, Elephant Seals

And photos

Oh how I hope there are photos!

It won't be through lack of equipment, planning or intent that's for sure. A barrage of digital artillery will indeed be firing once we set off

My equipment includes three camera bodies: Canon 1DX, 5DS, (thanks Canon Professional Services) and 7DmkII, a couple of GoPros, lenses from 14mm to 500mm, a Sirui monopod, and various tele-converters, flashes, and bits and pieces

Practical additions include Aquatech all weather covers to keep off the salt spray and rain; of which I hope there is little. So on the gear front I think I might have it covered

On the sea-sickness front I've done all I can including possessing most pharmaceutical remedies known to man

My starting regime will include Scopamine patch and a daily Stugeron with some Zophram anti-nausea wafers as a backup

And no I haven't forgotten clothing. I had to add an extra piece of luggage to get some clothes in, but nonetheless there are even proper waterproof sailing pants from Burke Marine

Day 2 - 23/12/15 - Invercargill - at sea

We arrived at the hotel in time for dinner and briefings last night. Disappointingly we realized that we weren't getting on the ship until 3pm and sailing at 5pm, so the anticipation and lead up is drawn out even more.

Met some lovely people and found that some of the party are bound for Macquarie Island to fill roles as researchers, the doctor, and the plumber.

To pass the time we head to the Invercargill museum to check out their sub-Antarctic display. The big highlight though was the Tuatara!

A short bus ride to Bluff and there she was - the Spirit of Enderby or the Professor Kromov if you want to use the proper Russian title

We embarked and found cabin 331 - our home for the next 11 days

Thankfully our cabin is on the lowest passenger deck which I'm hoping will help with the movement and my sea sickness. Our cabin is bigger than I expected with a good amount of storage space and two floor level beds. I've quickly filled the two smaller drawers with clothes and the big one with camera gear. Shared toilet and shower are right outside our cabin which is handy. (note the photo below was taken at the end of our trip as we were leaving. It was much cleaner before we got there)

Needless to say I wasn't the only one that missed lunch today

After leaving the Snares we've had a strong westerly swell rolling us on our southward journey to the Auckland Islands. Half an Ondansetron wafer and a lie down for an hour have done me well and I'm still feeling so blessed that I've lasted almost 24 hours without throwing up!

My Scopamine patch is working well coupled with a nightly Stugeron and Fexotab

But I've got ahead of myself...

The sun isn't setting until late and we managed to spend a fair bit of time last night on deck as we passed Stewart Island and beyond

Plenty of Cape Petrels (these would be a running joke for the entire trip as they were so common), prions and Albatross - including Bullers, Shy, Salvins, Royal and Wandering

It really was an amazing experience that totally whet our appetite for the islands to come where we are hoping to get ashore

A great couple of hours testing out our wet weather gear in the rain and wind

Also a fantastic test of the GoPro filming underwater from the Zodiac

It was pretty dark and miserable above the water however we couldn't resist getting the cheap selfie stick wet and probing below the surface with the GoPro

We had no idea what we were capturing (if anything)

However having just looked at a couple of the clips I can tell you we're pretty excited!

Introduction

Day 1 - 22/12/15 - Sydney - Invercargill

Day 2 - 23/12/15 - Invercargill - at sea

Day 3 - 24/12/15 - Snares Islands and beyond

to be continued.......