Antarctica Day 2

The day stayed very cold but there were patches of sun that would peak through the clouds giving us some very interesting lighting for photography. We went by many icebergs of all sizes; bergy bits, growlers to huge tabular icebergs and ones with the wonderful shapes and caves. We saw whales, seals, penguins and many types of birds.

We made it into Paradise Bay and saw the Chilean Base and the Argentinean Almirante Brown Base where we landed before. There was an expedition ship doing landings at Almirante Brown and you can see the people up on the hill. This is the hill that Jim and most of the others in our group climbed and then slid down on their bottoms - great fun for adults that don’t do that kind of stuff much these days. It looks considerably different with much of the snow melted but we could easily see penguins everywhere from the ship.

We cruised for a couple more hours and then reached Cuverville Island at about 12:30 pm. Here the snow and ice had also melted back considerably in the couple months and we could see literally thousands of penguins on the land and in the water around the ship. The Captain was able to get the ship very close here and actually spun the ship around so both sides and the aft could have a nice view. Very soon after we left Cuverville Island the fog descended and you couldn’t see anything… time for lunch and a nap while the ship headed toward Deception Island. I had thought we would be able to go into the caldera of the island, but Prinsendam is too big.

At about 4:00pm the Captain came on the speakers and announced that since the heat and hot water had been out all morning he was giving everyone a free bar for 1 hour prior to dinner; a very nice gesture since the ship did get quite chilly! Jim and I went to Explorers Lounge and had our free cocktail (his usual Jack and I had an Irish Coffee) then headed to the Lido for dinner. At about 7:30 we arrived at Deception Island - the tour guide announced it on the speakers and said “it’s out there, we can see it on radar“… but all we could see was fog. Suddenly the fog lifted enough that we could see the entrance called Neptune’s Bellows - mother nature seems to like Prinsendam. We made a circle around the island and the fog stayed up enough for us to see the whole thing, but not to the top of the hills. Shortly after that we headed to bed.