Passport stamped, camping in Antarctica, and of course, penguins

Yesterday - freakin awesome! So after the morning at Cuverville, we were off to Port Lockroy. Our group stopped at Jougla Point first. There, surprise surprise, we saw penguins. Gentoos. But there was also a significant sea-bird nesting site - blue-eyed shags. As I said before, I'm not big into sea birds, but I thought the blue eye (or ring around the eye) was pretty cool. 

But way cooler than the blue-eyed shags were the whale bones. Port Lockroy has a storied history and started as a whaling site. Apparently the harbour is full of whale bones including both fin and blue whales. Members of the UK Joint Services Expedition put together this skeleton to show off the history of the area. It's made up of bones from a number of individuals, and potentially two different species (fin or blue). The differences between these two species are very minimal at a skeletal level, so these bones and the whole put together skeleton could be either of the giant baleen species. Either way, it's huge! When taking this picture all I could think of was Dory and Marlin inside the whale's mouth and Dory trying to speak whale, although being unsure if she was speaking orca or humpback.

Like I said, there were a lot of penguins. The penguin babies were at an earlier stage than further north, and it was mostly eggs. But the nest building was still the major activity going on at the rookery.

Some penguins were taking their job as welcoming committee very seriously. I quite enjoyed it.

I also just had to share this picture, not quite in focus, but I love the picture, as the penguin hops off the rocks.

Leaving Jougla Point, it was time for a little zodiac ride - first stop, 2 weddell seals. Of the types of seals we will see down here, these guys are the cutest in my opinion. We were told that the Weddell seal has a very cat-like face, the crab-eater seal has a dog-like face and the leopard seal has a serpent-like face. Clearly leopard seals are out, but I just love these guys, look at that face...how can you not love them?

After hanging out with the Weddell seal for a bit, we headed over to see a leopard seal. Very serpent like, not just in the face, the whole thing. Leopard seals are second only to orcas as top of the Antarctic food chain, although there have been records of leopard seals attacking orcas too. They are very large and very powerful, and you can see that power even when they are just chilling on the ice.

And look at those jaws! Anyways, I'm not a big fan.

Last stop on this trip out was to Port Lockroy itself. British Base A was built in 1944 as part of a secret operation (Operation Tabarin) looking out for Germans trying to take control of the Antarctic. Scientific study took over in 1948 and the base continued to operate until 1962. In 1996 the Antarctic Heritage Trust took over the site and now runs a small museum. At Port Lockroy we were able to get our passports stamped as having been in Antarctica. There is also a post office where I sent a few post cards, although Mom, Dad, Robin, B & K, don't expect them anytime soon. Apparently it can take a few months for them to get anywhere.

View from the station's kitchen.

After heading back to the ship, it was announced that we would, in fact, be heading back to land one more time on the 6th. It was camping night! I was a little nervous, I'll admit, but we went down to the mudroom and picked up all our things and off we went!

Marianna (Australia), Brooke (Australia) and Susanne (USA) - ready to go camping!

Me and Allan (Australia) heading to shore for camping. 

As we got in the zodiacs, the sun made an appearance and it made for an absolutely spectacular evening. After setting up our tents, we hiked up to a view point and took advantage of the beautiful light. I kept looking around thinking, this is probably the most beautiful place I have ever camped. And I have camped in a fair number of spectacular places.

Clare (USA), Jono (UK) and me

I tried making snow angels, but the snow was a little crusty, so the snow angel didn't quite work out. But I tried. 

On top of the beautiful views, there was also a few penguins hanging out. Around 10, I headed over to hang out with the penguins for awhile. It made me very happy.

And at 11:20, it was still fully light, but I was super tired and so climbed into our tent. Turns out we were far enough south to have 23 hours of sunlight. So, the actual sleeping was a little difficult. On top of it, Susanne and I ended up with a symphony of snorers around us, so even less sleep.

Wake up call came at 5, Susanne and I were both already awake. We broke camp and headed down to catch a zodiac back to the ship. This was the view when we arrived back on board. It was amazing! I am so very very happy that I had the chance to camp on Antarctica. This trip has been absolutely amazing so far. I feel so incredibly lucky.