Yesterday was our final day on the Antarctic Penninsular with two landings on the continent itself. The afternoon blew us away; we saw first hand the effects of global warming as the temperature hovered between 45 and 50 degrees; so warm we were mostly down to long underwear t-shirts only. We went on the second hike of the day climbing a couple of hundred feet to overlook the glacier, (beautiful views) and then snow slide back down; Diana actually rode down acidently on a mini avalanche, we were all amused but I don't think she was. I got to witness a huge block of ice fall into the ocean which created a mini tsunami. As we rode the zodiacs back toward the boat 3 Minki whales surfaced about 10 feet away and stayed with us for 5 minutes or so. Then we cruised off toward a "surprise" that the ships staff had been telling us about - this was a zodiac moored to an iceburg serving champers in the middle of a flat calm bay with tons of ice bergs flating around with indescribale mountain views so we could toast our amazing voyage. During the evening we had a pod of 17 killer whales right next to the boat (I took about 100 pictures in a 7 minutes period - now up to about 1800). As we were crusiing the bays and channels the captain announced that we were cruising to one more bay so they could drop off the mail - we litterally crusied to this tiny remote wooden hut that was on a tiny island - they lowered a zodiac and one of the crew ran all postcards etc to the island so they could officially be mailed and stamped from Antarctica - the captain really does treat this ship like it is a run-about, very cool. Th evening ended with Michael, Donna and I having cocktails to the wee hours with Rob, Cindy and Morris and watching an amazing sunset at 12.30 AM; we could not have asked for better.
So now we are crossing the dreaded Drake passage and I have seen rougher water in Paradise Lake, in fact the crew are referring to the conditions as the Drake Lake!!! The cruise director Yanni says if the conditions continue as they are the captain will have another suprsie for us - one can only imagine. We have two days at sea and then into Ushia where we should arrive early Sunday morning. We then fly straight home and arrive Mondya afternoon in Bermuda.
2 comments:
It sounds like an amazing trip, we have enjoyed reading your blog and can't wait to see the photos.
you better wait for me!
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