Peterman Island and Port Lockroy
Trip Start
Dec 31, 2005
1
9
20
Trip End
Jan 24, 2006
Port Lockroy,
Antarctica
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
I have settledin with a group of new found friends that hail from many different parts of the globe. Sharon and Scott from Illinois, and Laura and Brent from Portland,Oregon are regular partners on the zodiac excursions. Marilee from Oakland, California and Caroline from Glasgow, Scotland are regular lunch and dinner partners, as Marliee is continuing on the part 2 Patagonia trip.
I´ve me a couple of fellow Canadians (from Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto), and in turn we´ve connected with a few folks from Holland and Denmark who seem to enjoy our evening card games (we´ve picked up texas hold-em).
We still manage to stay up quite latenightly, but never miss the morning excursions. Later in the afternoon, still heading south along the west side of the peninsula, we passed through the Lemaire channel, a narrow sea lane sandwiched between very high rock cliffs on either side
01 - Edge of Empire
. Massive glaciers cling to the mountain sides and tops all along the channel, while choking ice flows fill the waterway. As the Explorer cut her way south through the channel, 2 other vessels were turned back because of the pack ice. This was as far south as a non ice-breaker could go...and were were pushing further south still!Today, we visted Peterman Island first, a lonely island with a sheltered harbour that hosts a bazillion penguins, and a lonely crucifix in memory of the scientists that wintered there many decades ago, and disappeared when their boat was thought to have become captured and crushed in the spring ice pack.
Turning north once again and passing backthrough the Lemaire channel, we finally arrived in the late afternoon at Port Lockroy, a continually madded British Antarctic Science station. We landed at Port lockroy and got a full tour of the 100 year old station, that now hosts a working museum, a gift shop and a post office. We got some excellentpostcards, which wereduly post marked andmailed from Antarctica, as well as a passport stamp!
The final highlight of today was a sighting of a humpback whale pod, that mostly eluded my camera, but I have a few rather poor shots.
Comments
Good Pictures
Hey dude, you have posted some pretty good picture thus far. I like the one with you and the hot blond, oh know sorry that's you and the penguin again. Hahaha. I am just joking. Looks and sounds like you are having lots of fun, which is great. Keep the updates coming they are really cool. Have a good.
Serge