| |
|
| |
|
| A couple days ago, Rob and Steve (who run the dive operations here) invited me to go diving at the Cape Evans Wall. This is notoriously the "best" place to dive in Antarctica. I jumped at the chance! Today, we got two dive tenders to help us get out of the water when we are finished, we loaded up the piston bulley (a tracked vehicle), and we headed for the Cape Evans Wall. Along the way, we drove beside Mt. Erebus. Mt. Erebus is the most active volcano in Antarctica and is one of only three in the world that has a permanent lava lake in the crator. The mountain is over 12,000 feet in elevation. It simply juts out of the ocean and reaches for the sky! Distances are deceiving here; it doesn't look like 12,000+ feet does it? |
 |
 |
The reputation of the Cape Evans Wall is well founded! This is the most spectacular dive I have ever done in my life! The topography ranged from jagged rock to smooth slopes, to a glacial wall descending into the depths. The sea life is beyond description. I tried to capture some of the feelings here, but nothing compares to being submerged in this icey wonderland and being welcomed by the residents. And there were some exciting ones! |
| These tubes that descend from the surface are brine tubes. The salt is literally getting squeezed out of the ice and it forms these spectacular tubes. The one to the right is about 8 feet long and about 1.5 feet in diameter. It is ENORMOUS! |
 |
 |
This is Steve silhouetted against the turquoise sea ice. The dark patch above him is an air pocket that our exhalation bubbles created. |
We stuck our heads up through the air pocket; this is Steve!
This hole got visited by another creature shortly after we left. |
 |
 |
As beautiful as looking up was, there was equal beauty looking down! These are soft corals (standing about 1.5 feet high) and an Antarctic fish. |
| This barrel sponge is over 2 feet tall! |
 |
 |
This sea anemone was over 10 inches tall! |
| It was almost time for us to be heading back to the dive hole when I looked back towards our old "air pocket"..... |
 |
 |
We got to swim with this Weddell Seal for several minutes. I must say that those precious moments were some of the most amazing moments of my life. She was so graceful and acrobatic. |
Sorry this picture is dark and hard to see:
This is the Weddell Seal spinning right in front of me; it was as if she was playing (or trying to figure out why I was blowing so many bubbles!) |
 |
 |
We cherished the moments we had, because in an instant and a few effortless kicks of her fins, she was gone. Now it was REALLY time to start heading for the hole. Can you see the hole? |
As we did.... out of the dark came another seal, looking quite a bit like a torpedo! She made a straight shot right up our dive hole! Now we had a seal (and a BIG one!) in our exit hole!
This is the seal in our dive hole! Uh OH! |
 |
 |
This is me waiting patiently (as my air supply gets lower!) for the seal to move away on her own. Actually, all we would have to do is touch her and she would move on, but we are not supposed to do that unless it is an emergency. The seal is just barely visible to the right! |
 |
The seal moved off on her own, and we stole our opportunity to scramble out of the hole before she came back - by now, our air was getting low! She did come back! It's fun to see her from this angle as well! I will try to post some video clips tomorrow! |
| There are moments in ones life when one wonders what must have been done to be so fortunate. This was an entire day of those moments for me. I have been swimming with wild Weddell Seals in Antarctica. But wait.... there's more! |
 |
| On our way home...TA DA!!!! |
 |
 |
I asked this little adelie to wave to everyone back home for me! |
| So much happened today, and I have so many more pictures to share, I will continue on tomorrows entry. I hope you enjoyed some of this as much as I did! |
|
Antarctica 2006 
Antarctica 2006 homepage.