04 Mar

Day 6 – Two Landings

 

I was sleeping hard at 7:30 when my alarm went off today.  But it went off at 7:30 because we had two landings today!  Yay!

Our butler brought our room service breakfast!  Here’s the order form:

They started calling groups about 15 minutes early and our group was first. We grabbed everything and went down to the mud room.

We boarded the zodiac and were off!

Silly me, we were excited when we saw penguins in the water. We had no idea what we were in for…

We saw a couple jump onto land. I was so excited, I immediately forgot all instructions for disembarking once we stopped and it was my turn to get off,  I stood, I didn’t scoot, I held my bag – disaster! But we made it!

When we got off, we started walking up the hill, and realized there were penguins EVERYWHERE.

My word.

I just can’t.

Also, penguins smell. But really, who cares? When you look like this, you can get away with a lot.

These were chinstrap penguins, by the way! See the chinstrap line?

We had 45 minutes on the island. At one point I decided I was never leaving.  Forward my mail.

Gautam and Cisco:

Audrey!

We got Mukta’s flag out and took pictures.

I was so happy about the penguins, I kind of forgot that we were in Antarctica!

 

Tons more penguins over there:

Eventually, they made us head back to the ship.  Sadness.

I went through photos for a while, and then we went to get a snack. We ended up in the Dome. I saw some whales. Of course.

Then we went to lunch (that’s right, all this before we even had lunch!) where I had a delicious burger. And two plates of fries.

Then we went back to the Dome to watch the sights and wait until we got to the volcano! Volcano!

Our afternoon landing wouldn’t involve wildlife. Just a volcano! But we did pass a hundred or so penguins. They were everywhere again.

It was pretty foggy, and we didn’t know how well we would see the volcano, when all of the sudden, the clouds lifted!

It was amazing!

We watched for a little while longer and sipped on hot chocolate. Then we went down to change and wait for our group to be called.

It was much warmer outside, so we all went with fewer layers today. I didn’t even wear gloves!

It is time! Group C!

I started wearing slippers down to the mudroom. Much easier than shoes!

We were actually inside the volcano. It felt a little like Mars!

We saw one penguin!

We walked around for a while and then took the zodiac back to the ship. I showered and got ready for the expedition briefing and dinner.

The briefing was delayed for a little while because the excursions ran late. We watched the briefing from the lounge tonight.

Dinner was yummy tonight! We had a great time. I didn’t bring my camera though. Whoops!

Then we pretty much went to bed! Well, bath and then bed. As I do.

Tomorrow’s schedule:

 

Antarctica At Last – January 13-24, 2024
Day 1 – On My Way 
Day 2 – Beautiful Buenos Ares 
Day 3 – To the Ship
Day 4 – Drake Lake 
Day 5 – First Penguins
Day 6 – Two Landings!
Day 7 – Penguins Again 
Day 8 – An Unintentional Polar Plunge and Camping on the Continent! 
Day 9 – To Plunge or Not to Plunge 
Day 10 – The Day I Did Nothing
Day 11 – Calm Waters Again 
Day 12 – Ushuaia For the Day