There was only one things missing from the trip...

Yesterday was a day at sea. And for me, the morning was spent in bed. So many days with so much stuff going on and so little sleep caught up with me and I was not feeling well when I woke up. So I spent the morning catching up on some sleep as we started to make our way across the Drake Passage again. We were back on the open seas and you could definitely feel the rolling seas. 

By the afternoon I started to feel a bit better and made it up to the discovery lounge for a lecture on the 1914 Shackleton expedition. It was a really well done presentation and after spending even a bit of time in Antarctica, even when the weather was ridiculously nice, you just go, wow. That is crazy that they could survive. 

After the lecture, we had our trip trivia contest. I love trivia games. Our team - Brent, Clare, Michelle, Tom, Brooke, Marianna and me - we came in second. We ended up with the better prize too, so that was awesome. 

Post dinner, they were showing the film Endurance. I could hardly keep my eyes open, so called in an early night. However, just as I was getting into our cabin, Sam came over the PA system announcing that the weather reports were suggesting that we would be checking off the final item on our Antarctica to-do list - a Drake Passage storm. We were told that they expected to hit the storm sometime early in the morning and therefore we should be sure to secure our cabins before going to bed. Ok. So Susanne and I looked around our very messy room and started putting a few things away and putting things lower to the ground. Cameras off the desk. Put Susanne's computer away. You know. The important things. Then to bed. 

Well, sometime around 5 am this morning, my book and glasses went flying off the bedside table. We heard the thunk thunk of things falling. And then the ominous sound of something with liquid inside hitting the ground. We flicked the light switch on. Susanne hopped out of bed and very quickly dropped to her hands and knees. We had definitely hit the storm. My mattress was sliding back and forth in the bed frame and I was sliding along the top of that. We both started to laugh - I actually was laughing so hard I was crying, watching Susanne try to get around the room.  The liquid-sounding culprit was located - a bottle of red wine (unbroken). Susanne started actually securing things at this point. We took turns getting out of bed as we heard more things tumbling - from the chair almost tipping over to things falling from the little shelf in the shower to the hangers in the closet coming of the rod. The boat was rolling back and forth, way more than we had previously felt. And every once in awhile there would be that big weird air feeling, like on a roller coaster. 

Shockingly, I was actually able to fall back asleep for a bit. Susanne said it was pretty funny seeing me slide back and forth in my bed while the boat rocked. Just before 7, Susan came over the PA system to tell us that we had in fact hit a very large storm. It was expected to last at least another 5 hours. We were told to stay in our cabins, preferably in our beds, as it was safest there. The Expedition Staff would be around to check on each cabin to make sure everyone was okay and that nobody needed the doctor etc. 

A little while later, Kirsten knocked on our door and popped her head in. I was sitting on my bed, writing in my journal. Susanne was videoing the view out our window - sky....water....sky....water. We were fine. Although I told Kirsten I was getting hungry, she said she'd bring us some breakfast. 

Anyways, we were stuck in our rooms until about 10, when we were told that we would be able to leave and head up to the Discovery Lounge. They also let us know that our storm was in fact a solid storm. At its peak, we were experiencing 70 knot winds (130km/hr) and 10-12 metre swells. This put the storm between 11 and 12 on the Beaufort Scale (Violent Storm to Hurricane). So yeah. A little intense. We had now checked off the one thing missing from the trip - an eventful trip across the Drake Passage. 

When we got upstairs, everybody was telling stories about their morning. Apparently the people who were a floor below ours, their portholes were actually going under the water - yikes! Tom had rug burn along the side of his body after a trip across his cabin. Nick from Tennessee tipped right over in a chair upstairs, ripping the bolts out of the floor. Cat's bedside table ripped right out of the wall. The painting in Ben's cabin went flying across the room. Gene's suitcase lifted off a chair (where she had been packing) and landed on top of her on the bed. Apparently Susanne and I had a fairly mild experience (the bonus of being somewhere near the middle of the ship). A few things were in a state of disarray upstairs, but generally bolting things to the floor means that things stay where they should (unless Nick is sitting in it). What was amazing is that nobody was actually injured beyond minor things. Apparently the Captain had hand steered us through the storm for over 7 hours. Keeping us all safe. It was quite the experience. I apologize for the lack of photos. Somehow I missed doing that. Sorry. 

After all of that, we were back to the regularly scheduled programming. Dmitri did a talk on cold weather adaptations for sea birds. At first I thought - blah - but it turned out to be all about penguins. So that was great. My favourite part being when Dmitri would show us pictures and state whether something was cute or not. Then he made the conclusionary statement "so, if you are not cute, nobody will take care of you." Note to self. 

And then they announced that off the bow, you could see Cape Horn - the southern most tip of South America. We were getting close to land again. And would soon be out of the stormy waters. 

In the afternoon we were making our way down the Beagle Channel towards Ushuaia. The staff held a recap along with a slide show. It's hard to believe how much we've done and how much we've seen over the past week. Thank you's were given to the amazing expedition staff. Absolutely amazing!

Back - Dmitri, Susan, Randall, Scott, Frank, John, Kayak guy (never did figure out his name), Osi, Kirsten, Doug,
Front - Dr. Hansen, Sam, Katherine, Dr. Hanson, Alex

And then, a thank you and a performance by the hospitality staff. Who were also amazing. Especially Josephine, (she's not in this photo). Who kept our rooms tidy and turned down our beds every night and knew all of our names within half a day.

We docked in Ushuaia in the late afternoon. We had our last dinner on the ship tonight, looking out at the town. Some people left the ship and went into town. Our group stayed on board. Holding on to our last little bit of time together.

Clare, Me, Todd, Lise, Ben and Kyle

And where else would we spend our last night on the ship? The polar bear pub with Katherine and acoustic karaoke of course (even the bar tenders put on a show).

I am dreading tomorrow morning. I hate goodbyes.

Last landing. Sad.

Hard to believe, but yesterday was our last day in Antarctica. We had our morning polar plunge and the orca sighting. And then we were on our way to Half Moon Island. It was one more time to hang out with the penguins; to take in the icebergs; and generally just to enjoy Antarctica. Half Moon Island is a pretty little place inhabited by a whole lot of chinstrap penguins.

There is also one character who looks a little different than the rest. I could call him Tacky (shout out to my favourite penguin book of all time!) or, I could go with his real name - Mac. Mac is a macaroni penguin. There is a whole story of why they are called macaroni penguins. I think it's a pretty weak story, so I won't repeat it. I am trying to come up with a better one. Anyways, pick Mac out in this next photo. And he's not the little one. So Mac's story is interesting. He seems to have been a bit of a rebel. Or you could say, of questionable moral character, depending on your take on inter-species breeding. So Mac had a girlfriend. She was a chinstrap penguin. He was very dedicated to her, so he moved to the land of the chinstraps. He's the only macaroni on the island, but nobody seems to really care. Apparently he and his girlfriend tried for a long time, but were never successful in procreating (insert discussion about whether this was even biologically possible). His girlfriend isn't around anymore. They don't know what happened to her. But Mac stuck around and can generally be found just hanging out.

As I said, Half Moon Island is home to a lot of chinstrap penguins.

We saw a lot of different behaviours that we had discussed with the expedition staff over our time in Antarctica. It was like a highlight show. This was the most epic fight I had seen the entire time. It was actually two males both trying to steal stones from the poor lady in the bottom right. And then they ended up fighting.

And the chicks were out in force, always looking for food. So cute.

I will let you identify this next behaviour. And here is a random fact for you. Do you know how to tell the difference between the male and female penguins during breeding season? The females are the ones with footprints on their backs. No joke. 

As we toured around the island, the fog started to roll in. At one point the expedition staff started to express concern that we may be called back to the ship because of the fog. You also noted a marked temperature decrease when the fog rolled in. We didn't get called back.

This next photo - one of my absolute favourites. Can I just say again how much I love penguins?

After we had spent our alloted time on the island, Doug picked us up in the zodiac. It was our regular group (with a couple additions). I also think we became the zodiac drivers' favourite group. Scott said it is always the best with the groups that also entertain themselves. We had no problem doing that.

The fog was rolling in and out and up the mountains. 

But as I said, it was starting to get cold. It was the first time that I was really cold on the trip. Michelle and I bundled up as best we could, but we had been tricked by the sun when we were getting ready on the boat and probably hadn't brought enough to wear. Oops.

Still love the porpoising.

It was another amazing landing but sad to say goodbye to Antarctica. It was absolutely everything I wanted it to be and, in many ways, beyond what I could have imagined.  But I'll write more about that some other time.

Last night, we had a black and white celebration. Some people took this very literally. Cody's costume was pretty impressive. Good effort. New species of penguin - the Tennessee Penguin.

We also had a night of acoustic karaoke (which at moments was a really bad idea, and I clearly did not have enough to drink). However, these Aussies obviously had enough to drink and put in a solid effort with Land Down Under (although many of them seemed to not know the words or the tune). It was a great night and we definitely celebrated. Thanks Antarctica!

Swimming in Antarctica

Deception Island - we were going inside a volcano through Neptune's Bellows (great name eh?). The island is actually the caldera of an active volcano, so you only see the very top of the volcano. It is also, interestingly, one of the safest harbours in all of Antarctica (hard to believe when it is an active volcano). Anyways, the history of Deception Island has kinda three stages - whaling, science and tourism. The whaling history is clearly evident where we were landing - Whaler's Bay. I think one of the things that I noticed most was that the landscape had changed colour. It was no longer white, but more grey and black. 

As it is an active volcano, there are places where geothermally heated water is oozing out of the black sand, creating steam. I really had to laugh at the chinstrap penguins that were wandering along the beach. Our ornithologist told us that these would be the "teenage penguins", they are too young to need to be at the nesting grounds, so they hang out in interesting places.

As we walked down the black sand beach, a Weddell seal took only brief notice of us before going back to lazing in the sand.

From the beach we took a path up to Neptune's Window where you could look out from the caldera to towards the continent. Deiter and Johanne took in the views.

The path was rather interesting and a little tough to make our way up, made even more difficult because of our rubber boots. I definitely ended up with a fair bit of sand/dirt/ash, whatever it was, in my boots.

Ben, Kyle and Brent

From Neptune's Window, we headed back to the beach where the steam had increased.

Brent and Ben, in there somewhere

And then it was time. Time for the plunge. The polar plunge. We had planned on going all together, but Brent was impatient and went before some of us were even off the ship. So Ben, Cat and I went together. 2 of us wore swim suits, 1 didn't. Now, as I was explaining earlier, there is warm water oozing out of the land. So when you first hit the water, it's warm. It was about another step after this next picture that the cold water hit. And man did it hit hard. On top of that the land kinda falls away about 2 steps from this spot and if you aren't ready for it (which I wasn't), you make a very ungraceful entry into the very cold water (some were more graceful and kinda dove in, I just face planted). Definitely ended up with a mouthful of salty, cold Antarctic water. Blech. And by the way, between the cold and the mouthful of salt water, it is a little hard to breath.

Ben, Me and Cat

When your head makes it back out of the water, you kinda just go into survival mode and try to get back to shore as quickly as possible. And then at some point your body realizes it is fine and you get the big smile, and laughs, and screams.

Once on shore, Kirsten was there to greet you with a towel. But I quickly realised that there was warm water back where we had just come from. So instead of taking a towel, Cat and I returned to laze in the warm water (don't have any pictures). Eventually we got out and headed to Kirsten and her towels and stood watching a total of 97 of the 130 passengers complete the polar plunge. The ship's doctor made sure to take readings of the temperature of the water, and we were informed that it was 1 degree celsius,  2 degrees above freezing for salt water. Not bad. Polar plunge complete.

I just had to put this next photo in. When Michelle swam back, I have to say, she was the only one who didn't looked panicked, she still looked like a swimmer. And makes it look like it's no big deal.

After getting back to the ship, we were off again, leaving the caldera and heading through Neptune's Bellows again. This is what the one side of the bellows looks like.

As we headed towards our final landing, we had an awesome sighting of orcas. Different than the orcas I am used to, but awesome.

We have all been focusing on taking as much in as possible and its super sad to think that it's almost over.

The penguins were appropriately dressed for the occasion

After landing on the continent this morning, we headed up the Ererra Channel towards Danno Island. We had been warned that another ship had been in the area this morning and had not been able to do any landings because the winds were just too strong (130 km/h winds). We had to make our way back up that direction anyways, so the Expedition leader (Susan) and the Captain, decided to keep going and see what would happen. 

Ererra Channel - beautiful. But that wasn't the really exciting thing. The really exciting thing was the sea ice. The thing about sea ice is that is should have been long gone in this area at this time of year. Susan came over the PA to announce that everybody should get out to see it. They had no idea where it had come from and broken up, but this was a bonus (we've realised we are hearing this a lot, and I don't know how much is the truth, but I'll take it no matter what, I am just so lucky to even get to see this stuff!). So sea ice. I'll just say, I don't think I realised that I had missed seeing something until I saw it. It was like the pictures. Unlike the other ice we had been seeing, which was freshwater ice that had broken away from glaciers, sea ice is frozen sea water and it is sea ice that sustains the entire amazing echo system in Antarctica. When sea ice breaks up, there is a layer in there that is full of sea brine. There is a certain type of algae that then feeds on the sea brine. And then krill feed on the algae. And then everything feeds on krill (everything!). So, sea ice. It's really really important. And here's my climate change tidbit. The sea ice is disappearing with the temperature increases of the coastal areas of Antarctica (the actual continent is actually getting colder). But with the sea ice disappearing, it means the brine is disappearing and then the algae and then the krill and then all the other animals - whales, penguins, seals. So yeah, the sea ice. 

Sea ice is the flat stuff. An iceberg is that big thing in the back.

Ok, so we are traveling along the Ererra Channel and Susan comes on over the PA again and announces that we are going to have to make a u-turn. Although we are traveling on an icebreaker, the sea ice and icebergs ahead are just too much of a risk, and so the Captain has decided to take an alternate route. The cool thing about this was that during the u-turn, we also got to see the ship doing a little ice breaking which was interesting (and a little disconcerting). 

And then we saw penguins on the sea ice. Sorry for the lack of clarity in the next photo, I didn't have my long lens with me, but I love the leaping penguin, so this is cropped a lot. 

As I said, there wasn't just sea ice in the area, there were also some big bergs. Very cool bergs.

And then there was a berg directly in front of the ship. Luckily we have an amazing captain and he sorted this situation out before it turned into a titanic moment. But all those people don't look so concerned, which I found interesting.

Ok, after our small detour, we were on to Georges Point on Ronge Island. Not the original plan, but I thought it was great. When we were pulling up in the zodiacs to the landing, I noticed that there were a lot of penguin highways. I think this was probably the best penguin highway place. Because the snow is actually pretty soft, they do what we do, follow the path of least resistance, which would mean the one somebody else flattened out. They even seemed to have the passing lanes sorted out (they drive on the right side of the highway).

On Ronge Island, we were back to both gentoo and chinstrap penguins.

I just couldn't get over the penguin highways and how organized they seemed.

Humans apparently travel in a similar manner. No, this was actually very much on purpose. We had to be careful not to step in the penguin highways as our big footprints would be very difficult to get through with their little feet, so John made a human highway alongside the penguin highways.

After hanging out with the penguins for awhile, we were off to another zodiac cruise. Love the bergs.

And I finally clued in that I have an underwater camera. As there were no leopard seals around, I could stick my hand in the very cold water for a bit and got some underwater iceberg shots. This next one is a shot of the iceberg above. Pretty cool. Wish I had clued in earlier.

We then went to explore the sea ice a bit (like the penguins).

And then, Scott (our fantastic Canadian zodiac driver), said, I'm going to check the ice, and kinda rammed the zodiac into one of the chunks of sea ice. He drove the front right up onto the ice and told us we could hop out. On the drifting sea ice. This photo is of another zodiac from our chunk of sea ice.

We made ice angels?

Susanne, Michelle and me

Next one is a photo of another group on the ice. Pretty cool. As we were standing there, you could tell that we were drifting. It was really neat. 

I also got to add a new animal to my tracking capabilities. This would be the belly-slide tracks of a penguin. You can see both feet and flipper tracks, and obviously belly.

After the zodiac tour, it was a quick turn around. We all had to get dressed up. Put on our best clothes (which was a little difficult as my luggage consists of a whole lot of merino wool and sweat pants). The penguins were much more appropriately dressed. Where is the strangest place that you have attended a wedding? For me, it is now Antarctica. It was actually really cool. Todd and Lise are a lovely Canadian couple. Todd works for G-adventures (our tour company) in Toronto. Lise is a designer. They actually had already gotten married with friends and family in Costa Rica. But they were on their honeymoon and the crew took advantage of the opportunity and we had another wedding. It was fantastic. And I am super impressed that Lise survived in that dress (it was still a little chilly).

We spent the evening with a reception and dance. Lise tossed the bouquet (and it didn't land in the ocean). It was a beautiful evening and I hope really special for Todd and Lise.