Friday January 15th
Another day of landing on the Antarctic Peninsula. We had big plans for a morning landing but the weather finally got the better of us. We had snow!!!! It was awesome. I had never seen snow falling from the sky and it was incredible. The ship slowly but steadily turned from coloured to a gorgeous monochrome of black and white. I loved it!!!!! It cleared in the afternoon but that morning was truly a highlight for me.
We landed in the early afternoon at Brown Buff – a beautifully scenic spot on the peninsula where the penguins and seals make their home amidst a bay full of icebergs. This was the first spot we had been to where we could actually get right up close to the icebergs. They littered the shore and Dave and I definitely took the opportunity to climb over a few (a first for me but of course Dave had already crossed that of his list earlier in the trip). I took this opportunity to relax a bit with the camera and sit back and watch the crazy antics of the penguins. They are just so endearing. A couple of our mad mates took this opportunity to prove their manliness and took a first for the group by taking an impromptu Antarctic dip. The facial expressions that came with their surfacing were priceless. Certainly reinforced the notion that the sea was fairly cold.
Lying happily on the beach was a young Weddell seal pup who kindly yawned and made my day. It was awesome to see her teeth so beautifully on show.
The afternoon landing was made at Esperanza station, an Argentine research station that was quite unlike the Palmer Station of our previous visit. This station was founded when the nations were trying to carve Antarctica up for ownership (unlike now when use of Antarctica is governed by a treaty) and consequently resembled more of a township than a collection of research buildings.
The town was made up of a collection of houses all painted a rusty reddish colour and after a year of living on the base solo the scientist can bring their families. Indeed, 7 children have been born at Esperanza over the years. It was a neat place although a little too dismal for my taste. The coolest thing was that they had a postal service so I took the opportunity to send so postcards home. Figured it wouldn't be too often that friends and family received postcards from Antarctica.
Once we were back on board we had a much awaited BBQ. The crew had been stoking up the fires when we headed out to the station and the meat quantity was huge. The Argentines do a BBQ like no other and the food was fantastic. There is something very cool about standing on the deck of a ship in Antarctica eating BBQ snags in bread rolls. Just fantastic.
What a perfect way to spend last day of landing on the Antarctic mainland, a feat we achieved not once or twice but four times in 2 days!!!!!
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