Sliding, Gentoo penguins and living my dream to stand on Antarctica.

I can’t overestimate how much I’ve loved today. Early morning start watching icebergs wandering past the window. We watched the penguins swimming and leaping through the water while eating breakfast and just before we landed, a family of humpback whales were very curious about the boat. The calf was tiny. We arrived in Paradise Harbour and Station Brown (mainland Antarctica), formerly owned by Argentina before the treaty. As I stepped on land, all I could think of was that it’s just land that’s between me and the pole. How must Scott and Shackleton of felt as they touched land for the first time, knowing that they would be here for a few years.  It was covered with Gentoo penguins. We walked up the steep hill, thank goodness we brought crampons with us. There was a fascinating view from the top and the best bit, we got to slide down from the top! At the base of the slide we heard an almighty boom as a part of the glacier fell off into the sea. I stood at the bottom of the hill listening to the penguins, the icebergs cracking. Bliss.

I’ve been dying to have a hot tub, so after lunch, I sat in a very warm hot tub, looking at the Antarctic Peninsula. It started to snow, I was boiling and I just didn’t think life could get better. We travelled through the Lemaire Channel, called Kodak Gap due to it’s amazing steep sides. There was the biggest iceberg in the middle but luckily we were able to get through. We arrive in Pleneau Island which is sheltered and has the most amazing icebergs. While getting ready for the landing we were in the right place at the right time, someone had pulled out of cruising about the icebergs so we managed to wangle a place on cruising. We donned the big boiler suits and off we went in the boats.

Being so close to the huge ice bergs was wonderful, to see the bright blue colour, which is compressed ice rather than reflection. We saw crabeater and leopard seals saying on the icebergs and then went straight through the pack ice. It’s like a big mosaic of ice that moves when we go thorugh it, but then reforms quickly after. The ice is so different, sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, sometimes has bubbles. Our faces absolutely froze on this trip but it was worth it.

We still had some time so went on the landing on Pleneau Island to see a huge colony of Gentoo penguins and a huge about of penguin poo! We hopped over the boulders and spotted an Adelie Penguin, which are usually further south. There were plenty of Skuas stalking the penguin babies and being menacing.
By the end of the day I was shaking with adrenaline. We overnighted at 65 degrees South, probably the furthest south we will ever be, until we win the lottery, then we are flying to the South Pole.