It was the day after the Antarctica Marathon, which I had spent the last 2 years preparing and training for. That in itself had been an incredible experience, and I've written about that on another page. Getting to the Antarctic and participating in that race had been the focus of my attention, and with so many factors to go wrong, I was thrilled to have completed it, and have it over with. That race aside, we now had a further 8 days in the Antarctic and plenty of time to find out about, this unique wilderness. I knew that I was going to see whales, seals and penguins, and had attended lectures whilst crossing the drake passage, on the way here, I had no idea it would be as moving as it was.

My shipmates and I, boarded zodiac inflatable boats, and went on a 3 hour cruise around the bay, which we found ourselves in. It doesn't have a name, but is on the western side of the Antarctic peninsula, at approx 63° South. Our sister ship, the Vavilov, was also in the area, carrying another 100 marathon runners. It was somewhat intimidating, being on this small craft, at first. The Antarctic can be a deadly environment, and there's nobody coming to help you, if something goes wrong. There's no airbases or rescue stations, and it'd take a rescue ship 2 days, to sail from Ushuaia to come and help, unless one of the research bases, had some assistance to hand. Before long, we spotted a pair of Humpback Whales, and headed towards them. The shutters on my SLR's were working overtime, and I was in awe of these placid behemoths.

I've seen Humpback Whales before, off Cape Cod in Massachusetts, USA, in 1998 with my uncle and aunt. Then we were on a big tourism ship, and although they were impressive, and it was exciting, it felt like a very tame, zoo like experience. This however, was the real thing. We were in their territory, and we wouldn't have survived, more than 2 minutes in the water, which was almost certainly below 0°C, but not frozen solid, due to it's salinity. If they had wanted to, they could have overturned the tiny rubber boats, with ease. They were very calm creatures, and we turned our engines off, and let them come to us. The boats fell almost silent, as these incredible mammals blew air from their blowholes, and covered my lenses in fish smelling spit. I was pleased to have UV filter on them, which I quickly removed and carried on shooting. The whales were awesome, and my fear of being here, disappeared, and was replaced with excitement, and absolute attention.

We let the whales swim off, and went to investigate some of the iceberg harbours. We were at least a mile from the ship and were followed by an empty safety zodiac, just in case something went wrong. Before long, we spotted the dark shadow of a Weddell seal. This is a true seal, and was a great big fat carnivore, but looked relatively harmless if treated with respect. The next creature we were to encounter, was far more intense, the Leopard seal. Leopard seal, are near the top of the food chain down here, only a pod of killer whales (Orca) can take them, and straight away this seal looked different.

The Leopard Seal, was an awesome beast, and I mean beast. It was around 3m long, and had a head approx 3 times the size, of a human head. I understood that they could open their jaws up to 160°, to aid hunting. It looked intelligent as well, the way it looked at you, with it's large frontal eyes, gave away very quickly, that it was an intelligent predator, and I was a few metre's away from it, protected by a thin skinned rubber boat. I knew of two deaths by Leopard Seals, one of which, I was to find out in very specific detail, a few days later. Dr John Dudeney, former deputy director of the British Antarctic survey, was on my boat with us, and he told us at first hand, how he'd witnessed the attack on BAS employee Kirsty Brown in 2003, by a lone Leopard seal (read National Geographic article). John told us the full story, and how he'd had to go and tell Kirsty's parents, on returning to the UK about the death of their daughter. It was a very moving story, and quite tragic. I knew what these predators could do, and felt a certain respect for them, and caution when we encountered them on subsequent outings, especially when I was kayaking a few days later, and effectively in the water, very close to them. I've created a short video that I made, using my uncle's mini video camera. It gives an idea of what it was like to be there at least: Click to view, Leopard Seal. 13MB, 2mins duration, MP4.

After around two hours we returned to the Ioffe, and warmed up. It had been an amazing first encounter with the true Antarctic, and I felt hairs on my neck stand up, just realising where I was and how very privileged I was to be able to witness it. More people walk through the gates of Disneyworld Florida every hour, than have ever been to the Antarctic. In my opinion, this was as close to being on another world as it's possible to be for a terrestrial human being. I was also extremely angry that anybody could think of hunting whales in this age. In the late 19th and early 20th century, many nationals including Great Britain hunted whales almost to the point of extinction. Fortunately some of the work, that the IWC has done, has been able to safeguard whales over the last two decades. However there are nations such as Japan, Iceland and Norway who continue to 'scientifically' hunt these magnificent and gentle creatures. These are not cows, or pigs or mammals bred for food. These are giants of the sea, and very vulnerable, and we still do not know if the attack on their gene pool, will allow them, to be a viable and successful species, in the future. If you have read my article, and enjoyed my photographs, please consider this, and do what you can to safeguard whales. Consider supporting Greenpeace's work, or the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). I made a £25 donation to IFAW after writing this article, and would encourage you to donate a small amount as well. We must not further exploit these incredible mammals, which have already been decimated, by human beings any further.