November 24, 2022
Having moved on from the Antarctic Peninsula to the South Shetland Islands, our first goal today was Half Moon Island. It was a small island with a population of Chinstrap Penguins. The plan was to cruise in Zodiacs and land on the island, but cruising was deemed unsafe by the recon team. So we landed in groups and walked around on the island.
There were a lot of chinstraps hanging about and walking about, often making their loud squawking call. Up to now we had only seen chinstraps floating by on ice floes, so we were happy to visit this colony. As well as the chinstraps there was one lone Macaroni Penguin. It has been there for at least five years and is locally known as “Kevin”. So far we had only seen Macaroni Penguins far up a cliff in South Georgia so we were happy to see Kevin as well.
Later in our walk around the island we saw a leopard seal swimming along the shore towards the penguin colony. Almost nobody had seen one of these animals yet so that was a good find.
The plan for the afternoon was to land and cruise in Zodiacs at Deception Island, which is a volcano with a deep underwater caldera. It hasn’t erupted since 1969 so we felt reasonably safe. But the weather was worsening so the revised plan was for the ship to go into the caldera and cruise around. Soon we approached the island and the weather was still worsening. The revised revised plan was now for the ship to carry on straight past the island. Up on deck we were being pelted by ice pellets so we agreed that was a good plan.
On the positive side, that was the only shore excursion which had been cancelled due to weather. And we would now be heading for the notorious Drake Passage and then to Ushuaia.
There had been an announcement earlier that we could send postcards from Antarctica. We could pay a small amount for the crew to send postcards when they docked in Port Lockroy, which is on the mainland of Antarctica. We didn’t know when that would be, but we’d sent postcards from the Falklands and South Georgia so why not Antarctica too?
After dinner there was an auction, to raise funds for charities who protected birds in South Georgia. It was quite amusing; we didn’t bid on anything but there was a small number of people who really liked bidding up the prices. For example the last bid for a bottle of Shackleton Whisky, which went for £60 at the museum gift shop in Grytviken, was $250!
West Coast Hikers Around The World 