So...
The day started with a trip to the US Base of Palmer Station. We were all pretty excited by the prospect of seeing a working Antarctic station and by the promise of a "shop". The station does a vast array of research that runs from checking on the chemicals used in sedentary organism defenses at the bottom of the ocean, seismic activity, subglacial topography, astrological studies, ice movements and the impact of decreasing icve on the krill and penguin populations, salinity levels and a whole range of goephysical monitoring. It was a really cool place although I think the thing that most intrigued me was the hot tub! Yes ok, I realise that science is important but I could really see the value of a hot tub in Antarctica - hey, it´s cold down here!!!! There are 45 permanent staff during summer and 19 that stay through the winter. The shop did proive a hit and I went a little crazy. I bought a really cool/warm jacket with Palmer Station on the front and Antractica on the back. The others hadn´t seen the writing on the back and that jacket was coveted by many back on board the ship.
That afternoon we went to the Lemaire Channel (Kodak or Iceberg Alley). OMG!!!! What a place. We split the ships passengers into 2 groups and took turns to do an iceberg cruise in the zodiacs.
We were first out to iceberg alley and seriously, neither words nor photos can do justice to what we saw. The colours and formations were spectacular. Dave asked our driver if he could hop onto one of the bergs. The guys said yes and drove right up to it. Whenm Dave jumped off I thought the driver was going to have a breakdown. It seems we had a slight language miscommunication and he thought Dave just wanted to reach out and touch it. All ended well though with Dave safely back in the boat and the driver having a good chuckle at his bravado. Not only did we spy icebergs of fantasy colours and shapes but also leopard seals, weddel seals and crabeater seals. Awesome place - truly, awe inpsiring.
While the second group did their tour we were watching whales frolicking (sp) alongside the boat when a whale did a really close turn then came up for a look at the people gathered on deck. Again I didn´t have the camera with me but a friend got a great shot that I will post later when I work out how to downsize a file (darned Spanish computers). The minke whale was literally looking straight up at us - the line between watcher and watched definitely blurred there for a moment.
What an amazing day. And it was not over yet...
For reasons of beer - well lets be truthful - we decided to wait for sunset and sunrise. That meant that about 10 of us stayed up drinking beer and wine until 4.30am. The sight was truly awesome. It didn´t get truly dark at any stage and the light that was playing across the ice at dusk and dawn was fantastic. It felt like it was only 10pm at 3am. The no dark thing really messes with the mind. This was another reason I really liked our little no-porthole dungeoun. We had to turn the light on whereas others couldn´t get rid of the light. Made for better sleeping for us I think.
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