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 Friday, December 15, 2006
Last Entry for Journey to Antarctica 2006

Today we anchor off Enderby Island, part of the Auckland Island chain. All of the five islands comprising New Zealand's Sub Antarctic Islands are National Nature Reserves and therefore strictly protected. We surf our zodiacs into the rolling swells to a landing beach where there is a small research station and view one of the few major Hooker's sea lion colonies in the world. Hooker's sea lions are aggressive animals; they can charge very fast, as a few of our photographers found out. Because of this and the extremely strong winds on the plateau, I chose to paint in an intimate, tangled rata forest near the beach.


Painting the Rata Forest of Enderby Island 11:00 am. (photo by Daisy Gilardini)


Rata Forest, Enderby Island (watercolor, 10 x15)

I hope to catch a glimpse of the very shy yellow-eyed penguin, a solitary nester that is considered to be the world's most endangered penguin. It breeds on Enderby. We'd already seen 2 yellow-eyed penguins as we landed.


Yellow-eyed Penguins (photo by Daisy Gilardini)

The canopy of the rata forest acts as a shelter from the constant fine rain, although some does fall in the wet paint, creating the feel and texture of moss. One has to be careful of the songbirds, as they have dropped more than just rain on my painting! I left an empty spot in the composition just in case a yellow eyed penguin walks through the forest.

Drawing the limbs and mosses of this wind sculpted oasis takes me back full circle to 20 years ago when I first studied watercolor at the Ontario College of Art and Design with the master Chin Kok Tan. I was looking for a medium that was light and transparent and would help me interpret the light or force that animates this beautiful planet.

The Polar Regions are the last great wilderness and have many secrets to reveal. The regions are a place of immense space. If one is fortunate enough to experience that space, he can witness the movements of his own mind.

More information
To see more pictures of Enderby Island, including views of the rata forest and megaherbs, visit http://www.livingtravel.com/antarctica/enderby/enderby_01.htm

Hooker's sea lion, phocarcto hookeri, is rare and endangered. New Zealand's Sub Antarctic islands were granted UNESCO "World Heritage" status in 1998, when a calamitous number (53 percent of the year's pups) of Hooker's sea lions died from an unknown cause. To learn more visit http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=305.

The yellow-eyed penguin is the third largest penguin, after the emperor and the king. Its eyes are yellow-orange, and a yellow band of feathers circles its eyes and head. In contrast to other penguins, the yellow-eyed is solitary, nesting in tall grasses. Because its habitat has been curtailed and non-endemic predators like cats, dogs, and ferrets have decimated the population, the yellow-eyed penguin is considered rare. Visit http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/penguins/yellow.html

To read another traveler's account of yellow-eyed penguins in the rata forest, visit http://www.communigate.co.uk/ne/penguins/page12.phtml.

To see more photos and to learn about a trust that is working to restore natural habitats and increase the population of yellow-eyed penguins, visit http://www.yellow-eyedpenguin.org.nz/.


Antarctica Week 3
12/15/2006 2:27:34 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #  Comments [1] 
Sub-Antarctic Islands - Campbell Island

Give me a wilderness whose glance no civilization can endure. Life consists with wilderness. The most alive is the wildest."
Henry David Thoreau

It was a pleasant visual shock to wake to the green volcanic hills of Perseverance Harbor on Campbell Island after so long around the ice of Antarctica. The smell of soil intoxicates, as we climb a boardwalk up the side of this drowned out volcanic caldera. Our hope is to observe the hilltop nests of the royal albatross. These huge seabirds reach a wingspan of 9.5 to 11.5 feet, and almost 15,000 nest among clusters of brightly colored Megaherbs. These islands contain many endemic species of plants. Since being discovered in 1810 by Captain Frederick Hasselburg, the island is undergoing a longrunning conservation strategy to eradicate many undesirable vegetation and fauna introduced by ships in the past.

Weather was great for painting as it normally can rain 335 days a year, and gusts of 50 knots on more than 100 days of the year are the norm. The wind is helpful for the birds to take off; however, I can imagine my easel also doing so!

I find a large bush of tussock grass to work behind while studying a nesting couple. In this case I often use zoom photography to study the behavior and shapes of the birds, while working on a watercolor of the landscape. On these slopes, the vegetation takes on yellow and violet hues; the scene will change rapidly in values because of clouds' shadows. I work with a dry brush to suggest texture. It's refreshing to use these colors and experience relief from the blinding, reflecting glare off sea ice. However the complexity
of information is overwhelming, and there's a tendency to overpaint details while the world of ice reduces forms to basic elements.


69_pjantarc06.jpg
"Painting a Royal Albatross' nest on Campbell Island."  10:00 am (photo by Daisy Gilardini)


Royal Albatross Nest of Campbell Island (watercolor, 10 x 15)


Royal Albatross nest on Campbell Island 10:30 am

--David

More Information
To see a gorgeous photograph of Perseverance Harbor, click on http://nightskypictures.com/Antarctica/Pers_Harbor.htm
A caldera, from the Latin caldaria, cauldron, is a volcanic crater that has a diameter many times that of the vent; a caldera is formed by the collapse of the central part of a volcano or by explosions of extraordinary force.

Composed of both volcanic and glaciated rock, the subantarctic islands are home to over half the world's seabirds. Campbell Island lies at 52 degrees 33'south and 169 degrees 09'east. To see pictures of all the subantarctic islands, visit http://www.subantarcticislands.com/. To learn more about Campbell Island, which has the world's largest population of royal albatross, go to http://www.subantarcticislands.com/campbell_island.html.

Joseph Hooker, the botanist on board Captain James Ross's ships, Erebus and Terror, was the first to describe colorful plants that thrive in the acidic soil of these islands. To learn more about these strange plants and to read the story behind efforts to eradicate non-indigenous plant and animal life, visit http://www.plantexplorers.com/explorers/biographies/hooker/megaherbs.htm.


Antarctica Week 3
12/15/2006 2:04:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #  Comments [0] 
 Monday, December 11, 2006
Cape Adare

Cape Adare is the northeastern extremity of Victoria Land in Antarctica. It's our last stop on the continent before navigating a 600-nautical-miles ice pack towards the sub Antarctic Islands. James Clark Ross discovered the steep mountainside of Cape Adare in 1841. Today it's a protected heritage site, as it was here where the first over-wintering on the Antarctic Continent took place, when Carston Borchgrevink's 1898-1900 Southern Cross expedition built a hut and survived the winter. During breeding season almost 250,000 pairs of Adelie penguins can be found here.


Ice Shards, Cape Adare, Antarctica, 9:30 a.m. (photo by David McEown)

Wake up call was 4:00 a.m. so we could take advantage of the outgoing tide that drew ice away from the shore, allowing us to land the zodiacs. There was a welcome committee of lovable, curious penguins that seemed oblivious to the harshness of last year's winter, though several starved chicks lay dead in the thawing ice.

We slowly make our way through the renewal--adelie penguins on fresh eggs--toward one of the first huts on Antarctica, Borchgrevink's construction, which was still unopened this year, blocked by ice. The hut was interesting, but what caught my painter's eye was a huge bay of ice shards, not unlike the classic polar landscape painting from 1824, Casper David Friedrich's Polar Sea. The exposed shards look threatening yet are fragile, as they could break like glass.

I like to wonder what other painters of the past would have done with this huge, macro landscape with tiny, awkward highways of penguins dotting the landscape. My favorite painters from the past I'd like to invite are William Turner, Fredrick Church and any ancient Chinese master landscape painter!


From Cape Adare #1, Antarctica (watercolor, 10x15) (photo by David McEown)

Today I really am able to indulge in the scraper. It's just above freezing, so I soak the paper and apply the broad washes of tone. Then the lifting out process--with the heavy stainless steal knife--begins. I imagine the sounds and the powerful forces at play--using the blade on its edge and cutting and bruising the sizing on the paper to create dark marks. Thus, the soft pastel colors of cool ice are contrasted with visceral mark-making. That is the seduction of Antarctica; it's beautiful on the outside but dangerous and mysterious.


Painting the Ice covered shoreline at Cape Adare, Antarctica.  9:00 am (photo by Daisy Gilardini)

I paint as many pictures as possible, with no sleep, before it's time to go towards the sub-Antarctic islands and the nesting sites of the royal albatross.

-- David 


Weddel Seal, adelie Penguins and our ship.  (photo by David McEown)

More information

James Clark Ross discovered Victoria Land, claiming it for Her Majesty and His Royal Highness Prince Albert in 1839. Onboard the ship Erebus for four years and five months, James Clark Ross and his crew discovered the Ross Sea, the Ross Ice Shelf, as well as the volcanoes Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror. To read the fascinating story, go to http://www.south-pole.com/p0000081.htm.

Norwegian Carston Borchgrevink first visited the Antarctic continent in 1895. On the ship Southern Cross he and his crew arrived at Cape Adare in February 1899. Cape Adare today is the largest adelie penguin rookery in the world. To read about the expedition that proved that humans could withstand an Antarctic winter, go to http://www.heritage-antarctica.org/index.cfm/Human/Borchgrevink0.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was a German Romantic landscape painter whose landscapes can be characterized as both symbolic and sublime. Visit http://www.artchive.com/artchive/F/friedrich.html to see examples of his work. To see his Polar Sea of 1824, which David mentions, visit http://www.mystudios.com/art/ncar/friedrich/friedrich-polar-sea.html.

British painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)'s early work consists of linear renderings of landscapes; his late work, characterized by a highly chromatic palette, evokes a scene while only fitfully alluding to it. To see early and late work, visit http://www.artchive.com/artchive/T/turner.html.

American Frederick Church (1826-1900), of the Hudson River School, studied with Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and painted luminous landscapes inspired by his farm, Olana. To see and read more, visit www.artchive.com/artchive/C/church.html.

The symbol of the Southern Ocean, the royal albatross, Diomedea epomophora, is the largest seabird in the world; it spends 85 percent of its life at sea and can live to 62 years of age. To learn more, visit www.australianstamp.com/coin-web/feature/nature/royalalb.htm.

Weddell seals live farther south than any other mammal. To see photographs of Weddell seals and to hear their undersea cry, visit www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/wildlife/seals/weddell.shtml.


Antarctica Week 3
12/11/2006 12:08:44 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #  Comments [2]