Thursday Jan 1 - Grandidier Channel & Furthest South
Up and a bit slow after the NYE celebrations. We worked our way through the ice then had a zodiac cruise around the ice. After cruising around the ice for an hour we were dropped on an ice-flow where the crew had set up a champagne bar to help us celebrate the New Year.
Friday Jan 2 - Port Lockroy & Neko Harbour
We cruised up the Peltier Channel to Port Lockroy. The morning was spent with a landing at Port Lockroy where there is the British Antarctic Heritage Trust with a small museum and gift shop. At the first landing we saw many Gentoo penguins as well as cormorants - at the museum and gift shop we bought a few souvenirs.
After lunch we continued to Neko Harbour for our first landing on the actual Antarctic Peninsula at Neko Harbour. The cloudy morning had cleared to amazing sunshine and warm weather. At Neko we climbed a hill (quite a slog through wet snow) for an amazing outlook - of course there were many Gentoo penguins as well as 2 seals. Following the landing the trip back to the ship was done via a 1-hour zodiac cruise thought the ice - past icebergs with towering mountains and glaciers all around - we even saw a couple of glacier calvings / land slides as the ice did not reach the water. The final stop in the zodiac cruise was a stop at the “swim up” bar - were the crew had rigged a sun umbrella on a zodiac and were offering rum punches to finish off this amazing landing. All zodiacs were only back on deck at 6:30pm so the daily wrap up in the lounge was cancelled and replaced by a brief sketch of the coming evening and following day. Dinner was again an excellent repast spent talking with new friends.
Saturday Jan 3 - Antarctic Sound & The Weddell Sea
Ah a bit of a sleep-in this AM - up at 8am for breakfast as the Orion cruised up the sound - surrounded by icebergs - this area is known as “iceberg alley” for it’s wonderful tabular icebergs.
In the afternoon the ship was able to “crash” into a vast area of fast ice - very unusual for the time of year. We were able to literally walk right off the ship and walk around on the ice - watching the penguins sliding on the ice (called tobogganing) and jumping in and out of the water.
Sunday Jan 4 - Elephant Island
We were ever so fortunate to be able to land at both Wilde Point then again at Cape Valentine on Elephant Island - made famous by Shackleton’s landfall and camp while waiting for rescue. The naturalists told us that it was the only time in many years that a landing had been possible due to the constant winds and high seas.
