After arriving back on the ship from my overnight camping trip last night, I changed my socks, warmed up my feet, and I was off to breakfast.

Normally the ship sails to our next destination during the night and the usual routine is to wake up, eat breakfast, and go on our first excursion around 8am.

Because the ship stayed docked last night because half of us were camping we had a few hours free this morning as we made our way to our next destination today.

What did we spend a few hours free time doing?

Well, Harper and I watched Inglorious Bastards.

Ah, classic cinema!   Love it!

Sailing through the Lemaire Channel

As we made our way down further south we traveled through the narrow passage of the Lemaire Channel.

There have been many times on our voyages where the crew will come over the PA to announce that we really should head out to the deck to see something.

That it’s not to be missed.

Well, today it wasn’t hyperbole.

Passing through such a narrow passage was amazing as you could see glaciers close up on both sides as we navigated through a literal sea of broken pieces of ice in the water.

The Polar Plunge

Okay, this is the most flattering photo I could find of myself doing this.

Yes, I know, I gotta lose weight.

And, yes, I know, that’s a ridiculous bald spot on the back of my head.

But I digress…

Yes, I did the polar plunge today!

I’ll be honest, I was really on the fence about doing it and I hadn’t even packed a pair of swim trunks.

Luckily I was mentioning my doubt about it yesterday at lunch and Randy, the sailor from Louisiana, offered me his swim trunks.

Even so, with swim trunks in hand, I was still pretty 50/50 on it after not having that much sleep last night and just being a wee bit cold this morning.

However, by the time we started the polar plunge at 11:30, I found myself confidently and gleefully walking down to the gangway to participate in this Antarctic tradition.

Now I’m not a swimmer.   In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I went swimming.

I’d like to think that if I was drowning that my flight or fight instinct would kick in but I really don’t know.

Luckily they put a tether on us for this little foray into the water and drag us back in so there’s really no swimming involved.

So, wearing Randy’s trucks with a tether wrapped around my waist, I jumped off the steps out of the gangway on the side of the ship into the frigid Antarctic waters.

I actually don’t even remember the cold as, honestly, it was only -1C (30F) so it wasn’t like a ridiculous cold.

What I do remember is the mouthful of salt I took in.   Man, that taste is something else.

In all, out of 131 passengers, over half of us, 77, took the plunge including our oldest passenger Margaret at age 86.

After the plunge we were immediately handed a nice warm towel fresh out of the dryer and a shot of whiskey.

And then, for me, it was off to the jacuzzi on the deck at the back of the ship.

I was actually surprised more people didn’t do this as it just seemed like a perfect excuse to hop in the jacuzzi.

The only other person in the jacuzzi with me was Chris from Toronto.

He’s here with his parents and his sister Ashley who works in the G Adventures digital media department.

Apparently along with her free trip here she was also able to procure a 50% discount for her family as well.

Sweet deal!

Superb service

Okay, I need to talk about the other Randy on this ship.

This Randy is the head waiter and he’s been treating me like a king.

On the first day at the ship’s first meeting, John our expedition leader told anyone who had an allergy to go see Randy afterwards.

So, that’s what I did.

I had already told the company about my allergy when I signed up and, sure enough, my name and allergy was already on the list on Randy’s clipboard along with around 30 other people who had various eating preferences or allergies.

The point of meeting Randy I think was so that he could put name to face.

Ever since there hasn’t been one time I’ve entered the dining room where Randy hasn’t greeted me by name.

At breakfast he’ll bring some toasted gluten free bread to me.   Other times he’s brought me cookies or a special dessert.

He also communicates my allergy to whichever server is looking after my table so that they know to alter my meal when it’s a plated sit down dinner.

Today I didn’t even get to the buffet bar when he handed me a plate of gluten free battered fish and chips as the ones in buffet were breaded with flour.

Like I said, he’s been treating me like a king.

Because I sit at the same table most of the time, I also have a same server, Francis, most of the time and he’s well aware of my dietary restriction.

And then there’s Jay from the bar who knows that I like to drink Coke with my meal.

So, yeah, superb service.

I guess that’s what you get when you spent 10k on a trip.

I kid, I kid, but still – it’s been pretty amazing.

Afternoon exploration

At around 3pm we were off on our one and only expedition today.

We had arrived at Yalour Island which is home to a bunch of Adelie penguins.

The expedition today was split into two halves since only 60 people could be on land at a time here due to the size of the island.

For the first hour we cruised around the bay in our zodiac sailing past bobbing bergs on the calm waters.

We spotted a leopard seal taking a nap on one of the bergs and learned about the circle of life in the eating chain down here.

Basically, algae is eaten by kirll which is eaten by whales who poop which is then eaten by algae.

See, circle of life.

I think the algae have the short end of the stick.

The next hour was on Yalour Island which, while smaller, was still home to dozens of Adelie penguins.

You’d think it would have worn off by now but I still can’t get enough of the penguins.

I could literally photograph and video them for hours.

Their walk is so frickin cute that I find myself turning on the video camera every time I see one walking.

End of the day

By 5pm we were back on the ship and just hung out in our cabin until it was time for our daily recap meeting at 6:30.

I headed upstairs to the lounge, grabbed me a happy hour drink, and headed inside.

I immediately veered towards a trio at a table where one of them was shuffling Uno cards.

Yes, please.

Maddie, Keillie, and Stuart – all Aussies – invited me to join them and soon the cards were in the air.

It’s the small things, ya know.

A short time later, we had our recap meeting that also included information about what’s in store for tomorrow.

Then it was dinner where I sat with Jody and Dave again, the couple from Northern Ontario.

We talked for quite awhile about everything from retirement to cats and dogs and my mom’s bout with dementia.

Afterwards I took some time to try to catch up my blogs in the library before heading to bed around 10:30.

Another amazing day in the books and there’s still quite a few to go…

Edit Note: I am currently still sailing in the Antarctica with limited expensive internet.   I’ll be uploading all my photos and videos into a gallery at the end of this post when I arrive back on land.