If you walk around the La Silla Observatory site at all, it’s hard to miss the road that starts just below the 2.2m telescope and heads out to Cerro Vizcachas. It was constructed back in the 1990s when the European Southern Observatory was conducting site testing at various locations to determine where they would ultimately build the Very…
Between 2000 and 2004 I worked as an astronomer for the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile. ESO had 2 observatories in Chile at the time – the older La Silla Observatory that had been in operation since the 1960s, and the new Paranal Observatory where the Very Large Telescope was just starting operations with all…
Our expedition ended this morning with the Vavilov docked in Stanley – the capital of the Falkland Islands. We had about an hour to wander around the town, which was more than enough time given it is pretty small and nothing opened until 10am (we were there at 8:30am). Very British though, including red telephone…
In the afternoon, the winds miraculously died down again just enough for us to be able to do our last excursion to Saunders Island – still part of West Falkland. It was the wettest of all our zodiac rides but even then, not too bad. Apparently, that kind of wetness is fairly standard on an…
Just as we thought that our run of great weather had come to an end, the wind dropped and we were actually able to disembark for our first excursion of the day at West Point Island in the Falkland Islands. When we arrived at the entrance to this point during the night, the winds were…
After several incredibly full-on days in Antarctica, we headed back across the Drake Passage en route to the Falkland Islands. Not much to do over these couple of days so the crew put on a lot more talks and social activities, including an auction to raise money for several Antarctic charities, and a tour of…
Over lunch we motored from Cape Lookout to Point Wild, with some more amazing whale sightings against incredible backdrops. Point Wild is a narrow spit of land where Ernest Shackleton left 22 of his men from the Endurance under the command of Frank Wild, while he and 5 others sailed off to South Georgia Island…
We were warned often and well in advance that what we may or may not be able to do today was very, very dependent on weather conditions and swell – and so to be prepared for worst. Elephant Island (part of the South Shetland Islands) basically sticks out into the Drake Passage and has no shelter,…
Last night I almost fulfilled one of my bucketlist items – I almost saw the midnight sun. I say almost, because at the latitudes where we are, the sun does actually set briefly, but I definitely stayed up to see the midnight twilight 🙂 Here’s the proof – a picture of Rosamel Island, the entrance…
After leaving Esperanza Station and yet another amazing lunch, we continued to be lucky with the swell and the ice, and could actually land at Brown Bluff – a site with another Gentoo Penguin colony and an Adelie Penguin colony – something like 90,000 nests in total! Here I saw lots of Gentoo chicks –…