Updates by Ellie
Blog 3rd Dec
Yet another spectacular day down south… We started with a cruise from our parking spot at Waterboat Point to the Lemaire Channel – a stunning passage of water between towering rocky peaks (each with a very precarious-looking snow cap dangling over its top) – casually hanging out with whales and leopard seals first, while we waited for a cruise ship to pop out of the channel ahead of us. This was our first real encounter with the cruise ship world (captain Dave has done a great job of navigating away from them), and while they’ll never be the prettiest of boats in my eyes, this one did provide some much-needed scale as it emerged. We were all expecting a towering ship to fill our camera frames, but it looked like a matchbox model next to the massive mountains (in the words of Zoolander, ‘a cruise ship for ants’…) The scale of everything here is unlike anything I’ve seen before, and it’s mad to think how little of this landscape has ever been walked on before, let alone climbed.
As usual, Janey treated us to incredible food all day (a middle-eastern twist today), creating more delicious magic in her phone-booth-of-a-galley than I could ever hope to manage in a real kitchen! It’ll be a miracle if I walk off this boat still fitting into all my clothes.
Once anchored in Salpetriere Bay for the night, we headed to shore for a hike up the hill, penguins in every direction and a conveniently placed ‘iceberg graveyard’ providing a beautiful blue backdrop to our snaps. The view from the top was amazing, and we took a quiet moment to absorb it all.
Back on the boat, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I was handed a gin and tonic made with age-old glacier ice. Great chat, terrible jokes and questionable karaoke followed, and I went to bed with an overwhelming sense of how lucky we are to see this place – but especially on this boat, with these guys. Bring on the next few days… hopefully Port Lockroy and the penguin post office tomorrow!