November 20 – Happy Bday J-Ro
Round two on this entry – definitely just accidentally deleted it. Whomp.
Today we went out to visit Danco Island. Michael cross country skied again today and had a lot of fun. Per Michael “it was a lot of fun”. The rest of us started our morning with a Zodiac ride around the island. The water was really rough which makes the ride less comfortable and wet. We saw this girl:
Dave, the photographer, was our driver and he was great – super informative and willing to go the extra mile to make the ride special. Dave pushed through some pretty thick ice to get into an area that was protected from the wind which gave us water that was as still as glass. It was breathtaking.
While on the zodiac, we also had a great view of penguins coming back from the ocean. Some of the penguins struggled to get back on land which gave us a ton of entertainment.
Once on land, we had the chance to do a short hike up to a great vantage point. It looked deceptively easy, but after just a few steps, Mom B and Dad B opted out of the hike. The snow was very deep, so for half of the hike every step I took ended up with my boot going into knee deep powder. I was pumped to bump into our buddies, Zach and Dale, at the beginning of the hike. As we headed up the hill, Dale had many of the same struggles that I had walking. Zach, however, was like Jesus on the Galilean Sea. He just walked regularly on top of the snow and kept advising us to “just walk lightly”. He must have said it fifty times. Just walk lightly. Just. Walk. Lightly. I have no clue what that means or how to do it. Just walk lightly. So the hike was tough, but the view was well worth it.
As we hiked, we had to cross the penguin highway a few times. This is the path that the penguins take from the ocean up to their nests. It was basically rush hour when we were there, and as we attempted to minimize our interactions and impact on the penguins, we spent quit a bit of time waiting for the penguins to pass us before we crossed the highway.
(This is where you should see a really cute video of penguins, but my wifi isn’t strong enough to make that happen. Just imagine super cute penguins waddling around and say “awwwww”)
After our morning excursion and lunch, there was a second opportunity to go out on a zodiac cruise. Dad B and Michael stayed back to nap, but Mom B and I took advantage of another chance to get out on the water.
It was lame. Our driver was not very informative and we didn’t see anything knew. With so little time here, there are few times where I have regretted going outside. This was an exception.
Later that evening was the polar plunge. Michael and I had no interest in doing this going into this week. But peer pressure and fomo is incredibly powerful. So we grabbed our swim suits and fluffy bath robes and headed to the gangway. 107 out of 199 passengers did the polar plunge. We did it. It was a terrible 10 seconds of my life and then it was over. A few people LOVED doing it and a few people did it multiple times. I’m glad I did it, but mostly I’m just glad it’s over.
Something I learned during our daily recap:
A lot of the icebergs and glaciers that we’ve seen have a beautiful blue hue. Sometimes the blue is slight and sometimes it is a stunning deep, dark blue. When ice forms, it has air bubbles in it. As pressure is applied to the ice, like when more snow falls on top of the ice, the air bubbles get pushed out. Those air bubbles act as lenses which reflects UV rays or white light. With fewer air bubbles, or lenses, in the ice, only blue UV rays get reflected. Ice thicker than 2 meters thick without air bubbles appears blue.
Ice that is fewer than 2 meters thick that does not have air bubbles appears to be translucent.
