Sunday, 20 January 2008

The plan for today is to sail the Lemaire Channel to Booth Island and Petermann Island.

Wake-up call at 7:00 AM with the announcement that we were entering Lemaire Channel and that the scenery was very beautiful. I wanted to join the exercise class, but instead I went forward to watch the scenery which is very impressive. Rocky mountains surrounded by snow. We were told if you hear thunder, an iceberg was just created. Off the port bow, we saw some whales cavorting. Unfortunately I didn’t get very good pictures of them. It was not for lack of trying. The beautiful weather we have been having turned very cloudy.

We were able to land on Booth Island, where we saw all three types of penguins that are around land. The Emperor Penguin is out to sea fishing. It was a serious (for me) climb, but we did get to see the Chin strap penguins. The walking was difficult. It was either snow or slippery rock. With my poor balance, it was rough going. We also saw the remains of the Charcot 1902 camp. Apparently until recently, the boat was in good condition, because it was preserved by the snow. There were lots of Gentoo Penguins and some Adelie Penguins.

I returned to the ship early because the snow was really coming down and impacting visibility. After being hosed off, I hung up my gortex pants to dry. It’s good thing that I brought extra gloves, because the pair that I had gotten as part of the package were sopping wet.

It was announced we are cruising slowly down Penola Straight heading to Petermann Island. There is very poor visibility and lots of icebergs, flows, etc.

We went ashore at Petermann Island. The snow was really coming down. The landing was quite difficult for me as we had to walk on rocks. The guides had already washed the rocks to eliminate the algae as much as possible. As I went up, I was effectively passed from one guide to another. We hiked over to see the Blue Eyed Shag which was nesting in a high point above a colony of Adelie Penguins. From there we walked over to the yellow tents of the research team from Oceanites. They spend 9 weeks a year on Petermann Island effectively counting Penguins. I would have liked to wander around a bit, but with the heavy snow and the relatively uneven footing, I elected to return to the ship.

After resting a while, I went up to the lounge where I sat around with some people. Then the researchers from Petermann Island were introduced and spoke for a while. One the naturalist on the ship dives to study the state of the ground. She showed some of the films that she took, which proved interesting. Dinner was followed by me hanging out in the lounge until I decided to go to sleep.