The probable eruption points of 2 volcanoes with the lava flow direction of the northern one indicated by the arrow - towards Enderby Island
There are a several islands in the Auckland Islands group and these are dominated by a few volcanoes dating from the Miocene period (12-23 million years ago). I've included a bit of an idea of where those were on the map above. I won't put you to sleep with the geological and European settlement history, suffice it to say it is extensive!
After a wonderful day exploring Enderby Island (part of the Auckland Islands group) by foot the previous day, we spent this morning in the zodiacs cruising the coastline nosing into inlets and sea caves - one of my really favourite things to do. It was a fabulous morning. I did a little more underwater filming trying to video a sealion circling us but all I managed to capture was the rotating blades of the motor and the bottom of the zodiac - I still have much to learn! But I did film some seaweed in a sea cave with a collapsed roof - I think the caves along the cliff face were formed as lava tubes, or 'bubbles' of softer rock, or something similar to that.
Once a cavern now a secret grotto - the roof had collapsed. We saw similar on the Outer Hebrides. Beautiful, eerie, delightful places of cool sanctuary.
A mini forest growing on the ‘air’ roots of trees and other plants on the surface.
Colourful layers. Note the little float bladders on the kelp. Underneath these golden bubbles, the kelp trailed out waving gently in the current suspended by these little bubbles of air reaching toward the light. These are plants, well actually they are not, they’re algae, but they still need sunlight to synthesise energy. The kelp is a quite fascinating colonial organism. I took an underwater video of the kelp but got the camera tangled in it, but I did get a below surface video of these colourful layers of rock and sea plants.
We chugged into that cave - eerie but too dark to video (just lots of people making silly noises). It was interesting but if you want to see great sea caves go to Papa Stour in the Shetlands (we did that on our Wild Scotland expedition 2018 - see post June 28, 2018 Papa Stour)
Sealions, seals birds, intriguing rock formations and colours - it was a rather magical morning. We watched a pair of Light-mantled Sooty Albatross courting on a cliff ledge right beside a chick - probably not theirs. It was quite special. They finished their courtship with a pasde deux - a swooping, soaring flight high above our heads. All the while the chick, which was still very fluffy but quite large with sorrowful eyes, was snapping its beak at our intrusion. We returned to the ship with a glorious rainbow arching over the hills behind us. Sheer delight!
The white is not bird poo but lichen.
Poetry has abandoned me but how tranquil and simply ‘out there’. You have to be out there to know what I mean!
A rainbow was a glorious farewell to this little stretch of coast. A few cynics didn’t get the romance of it all. Poor them!
We spent the afternoon slipping along the coast in and out of inlets and ending deep in Carnley Harbour where in 1939 a German cargo ship, which was heading for Australia to load up with coal, was ordered not to continue across the Tasman - war had been declared. Instead it headed for and hid in Carnley Harbour for 5 weeks, completely unknown to NZers, while the crew cut down Rata trees to provide enough fuel to reach neutral South America. The incident heightened fears of the real possibility of the Subantarctic islands being used as enemy bases and that fear was fuelled when a few supply ships were sunk by German raiders in NZ waters a little further north. An interesting history, but it was time to head north to the final island visit on our voyage - The Snares.
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