Happy New Year!!!!!

What a way to end the year - it could not have been more magical. We had a wonderful diiner (it was so sunny they had to pull down the window shades) put on by the ship and then went to the Darwin lounge (the ships lecture hall / night club) to watch a comedy show put on by Kevin (the hots of the TV show Emergency Vet) which was hysterical; as it was so bright outside someone looks out the window and yells "killer whales"; sure enough with a quick glance there is a pod of about 7 killer whales swimming toward the ship. The entire room empties in a micro second as everyone runs to their rooms for their jackets hats gloves and cameras. When I get up on the main deck there they are swimming off of the bow of the ship; watch them and take a few photos before they swim off. Back to the lounge by 11.40 to watch the end of the show. The show ends at about 11.55 and we wait for the New Year count down - oh by the way forgot to mention who the star of this show was!!!! During dinner Yanni the cruise director comes to our table to talk to Phoebe and says that as she is the youngest passenger she gets to count down the new years and blow the ships horn at midnight (merchant navy tradition apparently). So there we are in the Darwin lounge, bright daylight outside, glass of champers in hand, beautiful snow capped mountains on both sides of the ship with Phoebe counting down; 10 - 9 - 8- 7.......... it could not have been more amazing! We heard this morning that there was a humpback right off of the stern at midnight.

So this morning we were woken up bright and early (7.00 AM) for a 800 foot mountain hike, the snow and ice was knee deep, Michael was the only one in our group that made it to the top. Then it was a zodiac trip looking at the magnificent icebergs while penguins swam all around the boat.

Yesterday afternoon was spent in the zodiacs in "iceberg alley" this was a bay that was filled with the most spectacular icebergs, the shapes, sizes and colors blew us away yet again. You cannot possibly imaging how big these things are even with pictures you dont get a perspective on the size until you get along side of them, (some are bigger than our ship). To cap this all of at we are cruising around we see a leopard seal basking on a berg; so we go over to see and get within 10 feet, they are strange creatures very snake like in appearence. As we are there drifting around a group of penguins comes over to swim right in front of the seal as if to taunt it - my predator and prey in the same picture are very cool.

We have been incredibly blessed with weather it has been out of this world in fact the expedition leader. Lou says that someone on this boat is blessed as this never happens. So one last expedition this afternoon and we head back across the dreaded Drake Channel toward Ushia where we should arrive by Sunday morning!!!!!!!!!