Day 12 - 18/Jan/24 - Antarctica - Day 2

 We've now passed the half way mark of our trip and once again the day started early at 7am with the Expedition team leader's commentary that woke me up.  I turned on the bow camera which enabled the audio over the room's TV monitor. I could see from the TV screen sort of where we were after weathering the 65mph overnight winds out in the open ocean (our safest place to be away from the growler ice).  His commentary then gave me a sense of where we were headed for the day.  So I flopped over and shut my eyes for a bit before getting up to start the day.  


Many people were already out on the bow, so I ate my breakfast to get that behind me before we reached the Adele penguin colony at Paradise Bay.  It was a bit overcast as we reached the bay and the water was glass smooth.  A number of penguins were spotted, but we didn't get as deep into the bay to the Chilean station at Brown Point.  This was due to significantly more ice in the water.  So we turned around and slowly made our way back into Gerlache Strait and over to Neumayaer Channel where we cruised about 1/3 of the way down it (previously we cruised the length of it.)




At 10am the Captain came to the MainStage and presented his plan for the next two days and also explained that they tried to go down to Lemaire Channel that we missed yesterday, but there was too much sea ice and winds that were against us.  This all happened before my eyelids were open this morning.  I'll not recap the plan but let it unfold as it happens.  Adrian Corvino then presented a talk on ICE Everywhere!  Ice Forms, Ice Flows and Ice Follies.  It was interesting.


We scenic cruised for most of the day and we enjoyed a lengthy set of conversations with a couple of German brothers on a wide range of topics.  I also put down a deposit on a future cruise in 2025 departing out of Singapore and ending in Florida.  We had scheduled a Pinnacle Grill dinner at 5pm tonight, but I moved it to tomorrow when we learned that we would be at the Cuverville Island Gentu penguin rookery at 5pm.  5pm turned into 5:30pm, but it was wonderful.  We got 1/10th of a mile off the rookery which made for wonderul picture taking.  Last cruise we were at least 1/2 mile further offshore and it was snowing.  Today it was clear with flat waters.  I shot many pictures of the penguins and there were even humpback whales surfacing around us and I got one really nice tail photo.  This rookery has thousands of penguins as has the guano smell accompanying it.







Eventually we had to turn around and head for a holding point in the Gerlache Strait for the night.  We ate a quick dinner and went to a classical music performance on the MainStage by pianist, Filipino Wojchiechowski.  He was really good.  The pianist in Billboard Onboard had the night off so we went up to the LIDO for some tea.  When we sat down and pod of humpbacks put on a show for us and I got another really good tail picture.

Tonight is the Orange party, but we didn't have the energy or interest in participating.  So off to the stateroom we went and hopefully we'll get to bed early as the day will likely start early on de again tomorrow.  This cruising thing is hard!


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