James’ and Sara’s Excellent Antarctica Adventure

Day 14: Lemaire Channel, Pleneau and Petermann islands

By the way, am loving all your comments!!!!

And today we are at the southernmost point of our adventure …. Here are our coordinates.

Apparently this is 1 degree short of being in the Antarctic circle (66 degs), defined to be where there is 24 hour daylight.

The cruise director urged us all to be up and around by 7 am to enjoy the 11 kilometre sail through the narrow (1600metre) Lemiare channel which has spectacular landscape on both sides. It’s apparently been nicknamed “Kodak alley” ( reminder: Kodak used to be a well known camera brand !) We had to wait a while for the Captain to work out the best way through a sea of large and small icebergs, but it was truly spectacular

A perfect mirror image!
Sun rising at end of channel
You can see how close the helicopter gets to mountain
Good promotional shot for Scenic?

The ship’s navigation through the channel was masterful, avoiding the big icebergs. The ship uses “dynamic positioning” which means the ship can be kept on exact coordinates without an anchor ( this technology was originally used for positioning oil drilling in the ocean with accuracy). So no matter what the weather or conditions, the ship can maintain an exact position and rarely throws down an anchor.

We took a morning zodiac cruise to find Adelie penguins on Pleneau Island. We found some Adelie penguins ( we have now seen 7 of the 8 penguin species in the Antarctica….yet to find the Emperor penguin, whose sighting is very rare) but we also found some more mothers and young chicks who are doomed to die

Adélie penguin has no chinstrap and no coloured beek
gentoo chick with a short life

We saw a male leopard seal having a nice time entirely by himself on a piece of ice. How do you know it was male leopard seal, I hear you ask? The male leopard seal has one opening below the belly button, the female has two.

Here he is waving to the helicopter
And for the bird lovers amongst us, this is a kelp gull
sweet face,huh!

In the afternoon, we landed on Petermann Island, where there was a small colony of Adelie penguins, as well as some of the most dramatic landscape I have seen.

Pure white snow at the top and pink and yellow snow algae
Here’ s a couple of Adelie penguins with the chick chasing the adult for food. The chicks chase various adults until they finally find their mum

The island had an Argentinian research hut which isnt used, but represents Argentine’s territorial claim. There was also a cross marking the death of some British explorers in 1982.

Note ship in background

And here’s James sitting on edge of zodiac on our way back to ship. You can see how icy the water is

awaywiththebirds

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7 responses to “James’ and Sara’s Excellent Antarctica Adventure”

  1. You look like you are enjoying your self.
    Need to get James smiling – he looks like he’s planning an assault on the pole.

    • You are taking us all on this incredible journey Sar… we are so lucky you are sharing your experiences… stunning stunning… it just keeps getting better. THANK YOU xxx😁😘

  3. Well, worth getting up for to see Sar. Really stunning. Agree with Les, James is looking very earnest and very explorational. I can see Sar adopting a penguin when home…..