Friday, January 17, 2011
The Penola Strait was our scenic backdrop early in the morning. We anchored in Port Charcot off Booth Island around 9am and at 10:30am it was White Group’s slot to go ashore.
We landed straight on rocks and walked about 15 minutes through deep snow to the local penguin colony. This is one of a few landing sites were the 3 brushtail penguins nest together: mostly Gentoos, some Chinstraps with chicks and one pair of Adélies with chicks. Very nice and cute! After quite some time just watching them I walked back to the landing site, Stephen went for a walk up the hill towards Charcot’s cairn. Charcot was a French scientist who overwintered in the bay with his crew.
We have now seen all the local penguins except for the emperors which have left inland.
The zodiac cruises back took a scenic detour between, again, some beautifully shaped icebergs teaming with wildlife (crabeater seals and penguins). These icebergs were mostly grounded which meant we could get really close (no dinger of them sudenly upturning and rolling). We were chased and stopped by the ‘Antarctic Police’ and cited for speeding; our punishment was a hot chocolate or ginger drink – the red zodiac again – very funny.
During the afternoon and early evening we cruised north through The Lemaire Channel. Around 9pm we arrived in Port Lockroy were ‘The Fossils’ (a band of on-board musicians) were literally perched on a rock-stage and performed life for the audience on Deck 7’s helo deck!
Caroline.
Photos
