The last two day in antarctica were the worst and best of Antarctica. A full day of zodiac crusing and landing was cancelled due to a weather system with winds in excess of 100km/h. The mood was low that day, I felt like this trip of my dreams was becoming less dreamlike and more nightmarish. We waited the storm out in fairly open sea, pointed into the wind. The captain managed to find us a very scenic location to have dinner as the sky cleared, giving us hope our last day would be memorable.
Our last day in began with zodiac cruising of Port Lockroy, the home of the worlds most southern Post Office, but closed the last few years due to Covid. Its going to reopen this summer, but we were too early. Instead we had a feast of Penguins and flying penguins aka Blue Eyed Shags or Comorants. They don’t seem to mind hanging out together. I mean Penguins really seems to mix with everyone and everything, except for Leopard Seals.
The Afternoon was one final landing at Damoy Point, not far from Port Lockroy. In fact we literally swapped with another ship just to fit these landings and cruising in. The weather has not been kind to many of the early season ships this year. Of course the benefit to early season visits is the pristine nature of this amazing place.
Penguins have only just begun to build a network of paths called Penguin highways at this time of year. As they move further up the hills, well worn paths are created as penguins after penguin follows the same trail. Of course we had many rules like don’t step on the penguins highway and if you leave a big footprint fill it in, because its basically shaped like a penguins grave….. There is not much more I can say in words about how amazing it was down here. I’ll leave this post with a few more penguins photos.
