Normally ships take 2 days to pass through the Drake Passage before they find the Antarctic continent but we managed to arrive early and do a bonus landing yesterday.

We kind of all took it as a trial run to see what it’s like to bundle up and take the zodiac to land.

I found out a couple things on that run.

One, I didn’t like lugging around my day bag on my back so that’s gonna stay behind in my cabin from now on.

And two, there isn’t a need to get ready immediately when they call my group because we ended up standing in the hallway waiting to get inspected and boarded onto the zodiac.

Let me tell you, standing in full gear on a warm ship is a good way to work up a good sweat.

So, with that all in mind, let’s get on to today, shall we.

Elephant Seals

Today starts a series of 6 days where we have two landings a day – one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

With a morning landing that means an early wakeup call for breakfast at 7am.

As usual, the breakfast buffet was setup and, as usual, I had to sadly pass by all the wonderful sausages, pancakes, hash browns, and waffles.

Stupid gluten allergy.

Even still, I had a pretty substantial breakfast and by 8am we were ready and waiting for our groups to get called.

The cabins on the ship each have a TV with 7 different channels including 3 movies channels, a documentary channel, a location map, an information board, and two cameras from the ship.

The three of us were glued to the TV watching Transformers of all things while we waited to be called.

Finally, at 9:00, my group was called and after going through an inspection and cleaning of our boots, we were zooming along the water to our landing point on Snow Island.

This island is a hotspot for elephant seals and, sure enough, you couldn’t walk more than a few feet before you came across some.

The elephant seals, weighing 3 to 3.5 tons, actually look like big grey rocks as you walk up the pathways and it isn’t until you see them slowly move that you realize it wasn’t one.

In one area was a grouping of about 20 seals that included one male, a few females, and some pups.

John and Brent from the expedition team were standing nearby giving an impromptu lesson on the seals and their mating habits.

Apparently what we were looking at was what some derogatorily call a “harem” but is often referred to as a breeding group.

The soul male was on the prowl ready for any of the females who really didn’t want anything to do with him.

Off across the pathway was another male who was strategically waiting for the other male to be preoccupied to make his move.

The competition between the males for the females is the main reason the males only live to about 14 years while the females live til about 18.

They also won’t mate until they’re about 10 because they need to be strong enough to be able to fight off other males.

It was actually quite a fascinating lecture describing what we were looking at and full marks to the two of them answering all of our questions.

Penguins

We actually had a few hours before our next landing in the afternoon so I finally started to write the blogs that had been backpiling the last few days.

When I’m unable to blog right away I’ll take pretty good notes on my phone so I can remember little details when the time comes to start typing.

By now I had 3 full days of notes written and the task of blogging was looking more and more daunting with each passing day.

So, with the water calm and the boat nice and still, I finally pulled out my laptop on started typing.

Pretty soon, though, it was time for our second landing of the day.

The landing we were all so excited about.

A colony of 120,000 penguins.

This visit to Baily Head on Deception Island is so rare that a few expedition members I spoke to said they had only landed here at most 2 times in the last 10 years.

The mild weather and smooth waters have really been our friend so far on this trip.

We landed on black rock soil and, yup, there were penguins everywhere.

So many penguins.

So many photos and videos.

I just couldn’t stop filming!

The penguins here are all chinstrap penguins noted for their defined black marking around their chin that literally looks like a chinstrap.

To me, though, they just look like they have been grins on their face and are smiling back at me.

Every once in awhile we’d have to stop and makes sure we were 5 meters away to allow a group of them to cross on their “penguin highway”.

As I walked up the pathway, I’d look in one area and see another group of penguins and then I’d look up a hilltop and see more and then further still would be another swatch of them.

They were literally everywhere your eye could see.

It was at moments like this that I really wish I had a professional camera and not just my inadequate 10x zoom on my phone.

Ah well, next time, right?

Chatting with Harper

We returned to the ship a couple hours later and I found myself in my cabin with Harper just chatting the afternoon away while we waited to be called to dinner.

For a 21 year old, he’s lived quite a life.

I mean, for one, he’s here on a trip that most people only dream of.

He was born in the UK and spent half his life there before moving to Perth in Australia 10 years ago.

Big into cycling especially the velodrome, he’s big into nature and camping and kayaking.

In fact, he paid the extra $2000 to be able to kayak on the waters around Antarctica.

We talked about his life and travels and somehow segued into a conversation about politics which is always a weird topic to talk about.

Despite me being a Canadian and him being an Aussie, naturally our politics conversation was about the States.

Anyway, it was a good chat and I’m looking forward to hanging out with him more on this expedition.

What’s on for tomorrow?

As usual, right before dinner, John our expedition leader holds a little recap and information session in the lounge for all of us.

Two days ago he announced we’d be arriving a day early and doing a bonus landing.

Yesterday he announced we’d be seeing 120,000 penguins today.

And today…

Well, today, he announced that will, indeed, be visiting the Antarctica Post Office on Port Lockroy tomorrow.

Oh and we’ll be camping overnight tomorrow night!

Yeah, that’s three days in a row where his announcements got loud cheers from the crowd.

Dinner with Kevin

Afterwards we all headed to the dining area for dinner.

I sat at my usual table with my usual table mates and tonight we were also joined by one of the expedition team, Kevin.

Kevin is a Naturalist from the UK.   He’s funny and a heaping vault of knowledge when it comes to animals here in Antarctica.

It was almost criminal how much we monopolized the poor guy’s time asking him all sorts of questions over dinner.

The poor guy couldn’t even eat his food.

Mind you, I’m sure he didn’t mind being the center of attention with all ears and eyes glued to him.

It made for quite an entertaining dinner.

Dinner, by the way, started with a salad with 1000 island dressing, egg, tomato, and avocado followed by corn chowder.

As a main course there was a choice of osso buco veal or seabass.

Normally I’d be all over that veal dish but, sadly, it wasn’t gluten free so seabass it was.

There was also a chocolate eclair for dessert which Randy, the head waiter, substituted to a banana cake for me which I found really nice.

After dinner I just sat up in the secluded libary area by myself writing more blogs before I finally headed to bed around 11:30.

It was such a great day.

I learned so much and I saw thousands and thousands of penguins.

Tomorrow is another exciting day with two more landings including a visit to the Antarctica Post Office and, of course, topping the day off with an overnight camping trip.

It’s going to be an amazing day tomorrow…

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.