Antarctica – Day 2, 31 December

Advised schedule for Day 2

• 7am Palmer Station
• 10am Le Maire Channel

We were supposed to return to Palmer station to drop off the manager whom we’d picked up in the morning, but because there had been a risk of Palmer being iced in, an alternative plan had been set in place, bringing the manager’s replacement with us from Santiago. So that morning the two had swapped over, and the existing manager, due for leave, simply continued with us the rest of the trip. That allowed us to spend more time in the Gerlache Strait, visiting Paradise Harbour (only just ice free enough for the Zaandam to enter) to see penguins, and visit Cuverville and Enterprise islands.

As you can see, the weather was far less lovely than the previous day, at least in the morning, although it brightened up, and was not without its own eerie beauty, as well as plenty of whales and penguins to watch out for:

Penguin tracks 🙂

One of two large penguin colonies we saw this day. One of our lounge concierges (who had to spend the day stuck in the windowless lounge), a Filipina called Kristine, had been fascinated by our photos of penguins from the day before, but admitted she had never seen one live, despite having done this route several times. So when I saw this colony, I rushed to the lounge, claimed I urgently needed her help, led her out to our balcony, and handed her the binoculars 🙂

She was utterly rapt.

Humans at the second penguin colony. All the penguins were gentoos, we think.

And then it was time to celebrate New Year’s Eve 🙂 (which I’ll discuss in another post.) By midnight we were out in open water, heading for Deception Island, and it was very rough. Fortunately, by this time, I had the hang of this seasickness business, so popped a pill, and slept the night away.