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This morning we make our first Continental Antarctic landing in Paradise at the Argentine base Alte. Brown. This afternoon we are scheduled for Couverville Island. Since we had no briefing, we have no idea what to expect.
So, we heard ashore that this will be our only continental landing. No idea if that is true. (Yes, it turned out that it was in fact true.)
It is another glorious day. The skies are clear blue and the air is crystal clear and right at freezing with absolutely no breeze. We cruised Paradise Bay for an hour in the zodiac and then landed at Almirante Brown Argentine Station with its Gentoo rookery.
We saw leopard seals, sheathbill birds, and blue shag cormorants, in addition to the Gentoo penguins. It was a cold morning. We saw 2 small sailboats in the bay this morning. That is just crazy! We drew the last 2 seats on one side and I was right next to the outboard motor. I did not like that. Too close to the water (with leopard seals!) and too noisy and the exhaust was awful.
When we got back aboard, the shop was open and Clay finally went in to find nothing for him. Since this is the last sailing of the Antarctic season for Le Boreal, pickings were slim. I got a fleece hoodie with Antarctica and Le Boreal on it. It was expensive at 60€, but not really compared to the 39€ t-shirts.
Some more shipboard comments. Our cabin stinks so badly! This is a very quiet ship. We have neighbors on either side, but we never hear them unless we are all out on the balconies at the same time. I am still not sure how I like the split bathroom. I don't like having to open and close 2 doors to wash my hands after using the toilet. We keep our sliding door closed over the glass wall to the shower. A good thing because they bring the zodiacs up and down right outside our balcony!
Lunch today is BBQ. I do not really like the food on this ship. I don't know how much of that is me and how much is the food... Last night the choices were shrimp or lamb. You could have a hamburger, but I had already had that at lunch. Once I tell them I need no sodium, my choices are reduced even more. I am eating a lot of bread and the good news is chocolate croissants every day! Oh, and the desserts and ice creams are good. In fact, every day they have had floating islands! I eat that every day. I love that stuff. Also, they serve a lot of iceberg lettuce, so I have had a lot of that. I like it. (In a related postscript, I had lost 7 pounds by the time we got home. That is good news!)
We are waiting to be called for our afternoon landing around 4pm. We are going to a large rookery on Couverville Island. It has gotten really cloudy, windy and much colder. Pretty much like yesterday.
I don't remember if I mentioned that our cruise is only the 2nd time this season they had gotten through the Lemaire Channel. I guess ours was a close thing last night coming back through to the north.
It was very rough, grey and cold this afternoon. There was about a 3 foot high chop and Clay and I drew the front 2 seats in the zodiac. Bad luck, right? We zoomed, getting soaked for about a half mile, and then I saw a smooth spot on the sea that was a different color and pointed and yelled to Clay to take out his camera. We had a few minutes close encounter with 3 humpback whales! Yeah! We really could have gone back to the ship then, but instead we went ashore to our largest Gentoo rookery yet. Between the front blowing in, the stench and the cold and my cold/flu, I had a terrible headache. We planned to stay less than our allotted 2 hours. They said there was an albino chick at one end of the beach and we wanted to see that so we walked down there, but when we arrived the naturalist stationed there said he had lost him He walked around checking with binoculars but eventually just apologized for the myth. We walked back towards the other end and by the time we got a turn in a return zodiac we had been ashore for 1.5 hours.
A few more shipboard notes. Clay says they have had popcorn in the Main Lounge every afternoon. Now I have not had any but still, that is good. I think my problem is that it always really crowded in there with the most awful woman vocalist just caterwauling into a microphone. I can't take it! Le Boreal has a really great shower with great water pressure and plenty of hot water. There is a small clothesline in there that actually dries clothes because they have a vent in the ceiling inside the shower stall. Excellent.
Another shipboard feature that is nice is that they have a sign up every evening for 1 or 2 tables of 6 each evening to dine with naturalists onboard. We haven't done it, but it is a nice touch.
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