Port Lockroy | Travel + Photo | A blog by Nathan Busscher

Posts Tagged ‘port lockroy’

Antarctica Expedition – Video Slideshow & trip summary

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

It took me almost 6 months but I finally got through all the pictures and video from our trip to Antarctica. We did take over 10,000 photos and several hours of video. It takes a while to parse that down into a 9 minute video slideshow. Enjoy…

Don’t forget to check out the previous posts from our Antarctica Expedition.

Also check out the web galley of the best pics from the trip here.

Tags: Aitcho Island, antarctica, antarctica expedition, Argentina, booth island, Cuverville Island, deception island, drake passage, Explorer, galley, Geographic, GPS, half moon island, joinville, Joinville Island, Lemaire Channel, lindblad, Lindblad Cove, Moon Island, national geographic, national geographic explorer, Northern Drake, packing, paulet island, Photos, Plunge, Polar, polar plunge, port lockroy, slideshow, south shetland islands, trip, ushuaia argentina, video, weddell sea antarctica
Posted in Antarctica, Photography, Travel, Video, Wildlife | No Comments »

Antarctica – 12/26 – Port Lockroy & Cuverville Island

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Penguin in front of Port Lockroy

We visited Port Lockroy in the morning. Port Lockroy was a British base in Antarctica from 1944 to the mid 60s. It was then abandoned and fell into disrepair until the British Antarctic Heritage Trust stepped in to restore the base. It is restored very well and shows how some of the early scientists lived in Antarctica. It’s only staffed during the summer months. It’s pretty isolated but the 4 girls on the island get plenty of ships coming in to visit. They also have a couple thousand penguins and beautiful landscapes to keep them occupied.

Port Lockroy Landscape

It also serves as a post office and has a nice little gift shop. Yep, there is a even a gift shop in Antarctica where you can buy crappy souvenirs that your wife will save for years.

[View with PicLens]

After Miki mailed her postcard we were off to Cuverville Island. This island had some amazing landscapes and I went a little crazy with the panoramic shots.

Cuverville Island Panoramic

We spent most of the time on Cuverville just sitting on the beach watching the penguins coming in and out of the water. We’ve spent so much of the trip running from one side of an island to the other but just sitting there on the beach was one of the best experiences. It also provided some of the best chances to photograph even more penguins.

Gentoo Penguin - water beads

Gentoo Penguin

Gentoo Penguin running out of the water

There was also a large group of male Skuas about that were making a lot of noise. Lots of fighting, flapping of wings and just general chaos. The penguins didn’t seem so bothered by this group probably because they focused on showing off to the other skuas rather that eating penguins.

Skua

Miki bought these penguin socks and for the whole trip she kept telling me she wanted to get a photo of her socks next to the penguins. After realizing she wasn’t joking I got a couple shots for her.

Penguin Socks

This was our last day on the Antarctic continent so we wanted to squeeze every last second we could out of our time on the island. I was able to get a few last landscapes in before the final Zodiac left.

B&W Cuverville Island Landscape

iceberg landscape

The final panoramic shot was taken with my infrared converted 30D.

Infrared Cuverville Panoramic

Daily Expedition Report and more pics after the break

(more…)

Tags: Antarctic, antarctic peninsula, antarctica, Argentina, beautiful landscapes, drake passage, gentoo penguin, heritage trust, icebergs, kayaks, landscape, penguin, penguins, Photography, port lockroy, post office, race, ships, skua, Travel
Posted in Antarctica, Photography, Travel, Wildlife | No Comments »

Antarctica – 12/25 – Lemaire Channel and Booth Island

Monday, January 31st, 2011

Lemaire Channel

This was a pretty spectacular christmas day. We woke up when the expedition leader announced on the loudspeaker that we had a pod of killer whales off our bow. Better than waking up to an alarm clock…

Entering the Lemaire Channel

We then headed into the Lemaire Channel. The captain had heard earlier reports that it was too packed with ice and we couldn’t make it through. When we approached the Lemaire Channel another ship, the Ushuaia, had already turned around. We hadn’t seen another ship until now and we all were pretty disappointed because it seemed like we couldn’t make it through.

The Ushuaia turning back from the Lemaire Channel

However, the captain was determined to get through and through some skillful maneuvering and crashing through even more ice…

Captain maneuvering through the Lemaire Channel

We did eventually make it through the Lemaire Channel. To bad for the guests on the Ushuaia. This is one of the many reasons to choose the NatGeo Explorer over the other ships that travels to Antarctica. This ship has proven it can go were others can not.

Lemaire Channel

The Lemaire Channel had a lot of wildlife. I felt a little bad sometimes when a seal would be taking a nap on an iceberg but was in our way. The captain would try to maneuver around the seal but sometimes it just wasn’t possible. This seal eventually slid off the iceberg and went to find a quieter place to take a nap.

Seal trying to take a nap in the sun

Miki taking a picture of me taking the above picture.

Miki taking a picture of me taking a picture of the Lemaire Channel

After making it through the Lemaire Channel we made it to Booth Island. We had the most spectacular light with the most dramatic cloud cover. We had some amazing penguin and seal spottings while out on the Zodiacs. I shot over a 1000 pictures in one afternoon. Don’t worry… I wont post them all.

The wildlife taken from a zodiac near Booth Island.

Yawning Seal

The 3 Penguins

Headless Penguin

Jumping Penguins

and for the dramatic iceberg shots of the day.

Antarctic Iceberg Landscape

When we got back to ship a couple of people were referring to our boat as the big lens zodiac. The shortest lens on our zodiac was a 400mm. Antarctica tends to bring a well travelled crowd and most of the photographers on board have already been on safari (some several times) which requires some big glass. Antarctica is no different. The bigger and faster lens you can afford to bring down the better.

Big lens boat

While I was on the zodiac cruise with the Ira Block (the NatGeo photographer on board) and the other big lens crew, Miki went on a hike to the top of Booth Island.

Penguin Highway

Hiking on Booth Island

I also took a few pictures with my infrared converted 30D when we were travelling back through the Lemaire Channel. My infrared camera spent most of the time in the camera bag because I’ve had limited success with it. Even with the stunning landscape of Antarctica, I’m still not satisfied with the results. Maybe I’m doing something wrong but I think simple black and white photos are much more appealing.