We went to Petermann Island this morning.  It is just south of Lemaire Channel.  It was cold.  Today was really the first time my feet have been cold on this expedition and even then it wasn’t bad at all.    Is that because I am coming from Canada or because it really isn’t that cold?  Who knows?  I think we have been very fortunate on this adventure.

There were many Gentoo penguins and a just a few Adelie penguins still left.  The Adelie penguins were molting and so we had to try and stay out of their way.  The ride over on the zodiac was rough.  It snowed almost the entire time  – it was beautiful; big, beautiful, Christmas Eve like snow flakes.  We had fun just walking around, I think after being a sea for a day we just wanted to get out.  It was a little rocky but we went for a nice walk.  Amy said it was her favorite so far.  She loved the snowflakes.

In the afternoon we took a Zodiac cruise.  It was great.  The cruise began with a family of whales playing around the boat and the zodiacs.  They were beautiful!

We could see something over in the distance on some ice, we couldn’t tell if it was a seal or a rock and so we asked our driver if he could take us over to see what it was.  He took us through the brush ice to check it out.  It turned out to be a leopard seal sleeping on the ice.  He looked annoyed that we were interrupting him. We took lots of photos and stayed for a long time.

When we started to head back to the boat we kept getting stuck on the ice.  Our driver had to keep reversing and clearing the ice so we could keep going.  It took us a long time to get out and we were the last to get back to the boat.  It was fun!  We thought our driver may have gotten in trouble for taking us so far into the ice but he wasn’t worried.

We watched part VI  of Frozen Planet  tonight and stayed up way too late talking.  I haven’t really been sleeping lately.

St. Patrick’s Day – edited version

We got to see some glaciers calving!! We had wanted to see it happen but we were told it is very rare to see.  We could hear it, so very loud and if looked quickly enough you could see the snow and ice falling into the water.  It was a beautiful thing to see!  Nature at its best!

We had an early landing at Jougla Point which is next to Port Lockroy.  Port Lockroy wasn’t open as they have already closed for the season.  We were hoping it would be open as we had all written post cards that we wanted to post so they would be post marked from Antarctica.

There was a colony of Gentoo penguins and it was so quiet. There were so many of them.  It is a little unreal to see thousands of penguins just doing what they do, so unafraid of us.  There were also lots of different birds a Jougla Point; we saw Blue-Eyed Shags and Giant Petrels.

There were also lots of whale bones where we were.  Someone had spent a considerable amount of time reconstructing one so you could almost see the entire skeleton.  It was a few whales put together but so huge.  It was neat to see – I even stood inside it at one point to take a photo.

This afternoon we stopped at Cuverville Island.  There were many, many penguins and a few fur seals.  It started out a little cold and snowy but ended up being bright, sunny and beautiful.  The snow was big beautiful Christmas Eve like snowflakes.

Our lecture tonight at the debriefing was about Irish explorers.  In particular Tom Crean, who was a member of three of the four major expeditions to Antarctica and who was on the Endurance.  He and his wife opened a place in Ireland called the South Pole Inn, it would be fun to go there one day.

We watched a movie after supper and then went up to the bar after to partake in the St. Patrick’s Day festivities.  Much singing (not by me) and laughter ensued.

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel’s sake.  The great affair is to move.” Robert Louis Stevenson

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller