McMurdo Sound and Erebus Bay

On Monday 23 February we were called at 6am. We had arrived at McMurdo Sound (the enlarged map here) and it was a gloriously sunny morning. We motored south along Cape Royds, past Inaccessible Island and Tent Island towards Cape Evans, through what is called 'pancake ice', which reminded me of Monet's lily pond for some reason. The top of Mount Erebus was shrouded in clouds, although later we saw it puffing away in all its volcanic glory.
We drove on through the channel cut into the fast ice (fast as in 'attached' not 'speedy') by an icebreaker earlier in the summer. We saw the occasional emperor penguin, skua, seal and brief glimpses of a pod of orca, feeding at the edge of the ice. We moved steadily ahead aiming at a solid edge of ice. And yes, we just drove into it...and stopped. The channel to Hut Point which is cut every year by a Norwegian icebreaker was frozen over. We could see a rubbly ice road ahead, but the rest of the way was blocked. Nothing unusual, apparently, because this route has been frozen every year for the past ten. One of our fellow passengers had taken this same tour ten years ago and 1999 was the last time they had been able to boat along to Hut Point. They backed the boat and then tied it sideways to the ice with big metal stakes, hammered into the ice by the crew.


Then they lowered the gangplank and we could walk on the ice. Breathtaking views, strange blue sky. This landscape is so very very wide. And I would say silent, because it looks silent, but the wind roars past you and you're so wrapped in warm woollies that you can't hear much except your own breathing. The temperature was -17° plus windchill, but the sun was shining!
It is impossible to capture this wide landscape on camera, with mountains in the far distance, stunning clouds and sky colour, which change over the course of the day. The only thing is to walk there, on your own, awestruck.



There were little groups of emperor penguins standing on the ice edge and plunging in, climbing out again and jumping in again, generally having a good time. Watching from the bridge, we felt that this idyllic scene could not last and was bound to attract the attention of predators. And sure enough [scary horror movie music], there came a pod of orca. There seemed to be a lot of them, maybe twenty or so (the biologist had never seen such a large pod of orca in McMurdo Sound). I felt like shouting a warning to the penguins, who seemed oblivious at first. But then a certain panic started to set in. The penguin diving and plunging stopped, but to my surprise there was no mass exodus from the water. The ice is probably a foot or so high, and we had already seen that it was not that easy for the penguins to get out of the water. Sometimes they would slide back and try again. This was not a risk they were willing to take now. They had a better plan. By diving under and around the little ice pieces our boat had loosened, the group of penguins managed to position itself behind the orca pod. Penguins are faster and can maneuver more easily than orca and therefore can stay behind the more sluggish whale. However, the orca are canny hunters and fairly quickly split into two groups and were able to herd and corner a few penguins against the edge of the ice at the end of the channel. I am sure I saw one penguin flying through the air as it was thrown up. I could not see everything, because (just as when I watch a scary movie) I closed my eyes at the critical moment. Strangely enough, the orca gave up after a short while and swam back out to sea, closely followed by the group of penguins, who did not dare go their own way until they were quite sure the orca were gone. We spotted one or two young orca (little fins beside the big one) and it is possible that this whole episode was more a hunting lesson for the young than an intended feeding frenzy. I have read somewhere that orca do teach their young in such a manner.