Today was an exciting experience from dawn to dusk! We started early in the morning with the visit of Metchnikoff Point, a site on Brabant Island where a small memorial plaque has been set up nearly forty years ago to remind us about the crew and the incredible voyage of the original Belgica expedition that took place here 121 years ago. On that point the team lead by Adrien de Gerlache camped for about a week in 1898. After a steep hike on this rugged side of Brabant Island, avoiding the proximity of dozens of seals and several penguin colonies we found the memorial. No particular maintenance was required and we carefully put back in place the little statue of A. De Gerlache sheltered behind the plaque. On our way back we discovered the remains of a camp – not from 121 years ago, but much more recent. It seems to be a former, temporary scientist work camp, perhaps from the 1980s. Unfortunately, when abandoned, lots of plastic and other contaminating waste was left behind. Scandalized by such a vision in this environment we could not remain inactive and decided to clean up the place as much as possible. We returned to the Australis to equip ourselves with gloves and garbage bags and returned to the camp to pick up at least most of the pollutants that we could find (sometimes half buried in the ground). The remaining parts (wood pieces and glass bottles) had to be left on site due to lack of means to deal with it, time and space. Overall we brought back about 7 garbage bags of rubbish on board to be disposed of properly upon our return to civilization. Disappointed that we could not do more to clean the place totally we had at least the great satisfaction to have done an important task to try and do what we could to put it back in its pristine state.
Leaving the island we encountered a pair of humpback whales, a mother and her calf feeding on a swarm of krill close to the ship. The sight was amazing and reminded us what a privilege we had to be in this part of this world and to witness this.
Our next objective was to cross the Gerlache strait to reach our future research sampling stations: Useful Island, Dutiers Point and Neko Harbour. By the end of the afternoon we managed to prospect all these three locations and make plans for the next few days.
Stay tuned for the next message from the Gerlache strait!