WOW

Moi: First, the bad news (for Simon). We may be co-authors on a published scientific paper before you, HA HA HA.

Mir: By the way, this is a day earlier than all of you expected because I messed up on our return date, not because of anything going wrong

Moi: Well, we started across the Drake passage for a two day crossing and had a real easy sail. Quite the rock and roll on the swells though, people walk at a slant.
Then there was icebergs, just a couple the second night but we woke up in the middle of a flock of them, wow are they beautiful.

Mir: Who knew there was so many shades of blue.

Moi: Day 1, we stopped on Paulet Island where the Nordsomethingorother expedition over wintered in 1903, personally being greeted by penguins, lots of penguins, skuas, cormorants, fur seals and weddell seals. You should see the small hut that 28 men stayed in. We then went to Base Esperanza and actually set foot on the continent, not just the peninsula.
By the way, did I mention the great food and lots of it on the boat.

Day 2, Hanna point. Again, greeted by gentoo (genpoo-poo) penguins, this gets to be a common theme of this trip. Then came Deception Island where we saw the remains of a whaling base. Oh, and by the way, went swimming in the Antarctic Ocean followed by a dip in a hot (well, tepid at least) pool heated by digging a hole near the tide line so that some ocean water seeps in and is warmed by heat from underground volcanic activity (Deception Island is classified as dormant, not dead). Then, leaving there, WHALES. Orcas chasing penguins, Orcas chasing seals, Orcas chasing humpback whales, fin whales and minke whales. My guess is over 20 Orcas, 3 humpbacks and the others. Most of the action occurred within 30m of the boat. In fact, Morris stood on the bow and was able to watch them swim right underneath her. Our staff said they had never seen so much activity so close before.

Mir: In fact at the beginning of the trip I asked what our likelyhood of whale sightings was and was told that we would most likely see humpback, minke and fin, but it’s not common to see orcas. Go figure. We kept on asking ourselves how it could get better,… and it just did! Read on!

Moi: This was our first delay due to whales, putting us off schedule. As the chef and all the kitchen staff were out taking pictures, supper was delayed by about two hours.

Day 3, Neko Bay, where I got about an hour of good tanning in while Morris and everybody else hiked up the glacier to the viewpoint. Again, penguins. Then Paradise Bay, a zodiac cruise. Morris took on the Armada Argentina in a snowball fight, foolish girl. We finished by cruising the Lemare Channel and overnighted on the boat at our southernmost point, 65 09 south, and no, we cannot really say who was furthest south.

Day 4, Port Lockroy, with first a stop to follow two pods of about 5 Orcas, but never closer than 50m. Amongst the other penguins we saw our only king penguin of the trip. Sailed off through the sea ice to Cuverville Island, a penguin colony and zodiac trip where we played hide and seek with a fur seal.

Day 5, WHALES EXTRODINAIRE. I happened to see the blows so let Morris know in the dining area and emptied the room again. This was the most extraordinary experience. Three humpback whales played under the bow of the boat where we were standing. They were so close you may notice in the pictures that people could not get the whole whale in the pictures, look at the size of the blowholes in the pictures. This was unbelievable. Again all the staff were out as this was new to most of them too. Then to Half Moon Island, guess what, penguins but this time with lots of fur seals. I got in some juggling with Florencia. Lastly, Barrientos Island with the crazy penguins. Get Morris to tell you about having them play around her legs. Saw one being eaten alive. I had three of them following me thinking I had food or something. Back on the boat and start home. At the day end summary meeting, Sebastien said he´s never been on a trip before where someone calls “Whale!” and people stand up and say “Aww that’s too far” and sit back down. We really did see a lot of whales, do not expect me to get very excited to go on a whale watching trip anymore.
Two return days on the Drake with about half of day two on large swells and high wind, fun, except for all the sick people. Finished with a great party last night.

This was a great, stupendous, fantastic voyage.

Mir: Not enough adjectives in the thesaurus to truly say what it felt like.