November 19
Jumped on another zodiac this morning to head to Paradise Harbour.
Today was a beautiful day! Lots of sun and really calm waters. This was also the day that we made it onto the mainland!
A reminder that all of our landings so far have been on islands. Some people don’t even consider those island landings to be touching Antarctica. So this was a big deal for everyone. We got a bunch of pictures at Base Brown and hiked a decent amount to get a better vantage point.
At the end of the hike, Michael and I hung out for awhile and our buddies, Leigh and Keith, joined us up top to enjoy the view.
Back on the boat, we had lunch and pulled together a few people for a small mass. Tom was gracious enough to say mass for our small group and a few friends. It was really nice to spend some time reflecting on this trip. It was great, until… about halfway through when Shane came over the loud speaker alerting us to whales!! We had that moment of panic. We still had another 20 or so minutes to finish the mass, but whales!!! I hadn’t had a good sighting yet, and Michael hadn’t seen any! Everyone looked around, but we decided to finish the mass. It was a great decision. We finished mass and headed to the bow in time to spend maybe 30 minutes watching 8+ orcas swimming very close to the boat. They were beautiful!
That evening, we reached the Lemaire Channel. This channel is 11 km long by 1.6 km wide and separates Booth Island from the continent. The views were just incredible and the night was so beautiful that it was great being out on the bow enjoying the show. When we got through the channel, we saw solid ice. Our ship was not getting through! So we sat at the end of the ice and enjoyed an outside dinner before turning around and heading back the way we came.
One thing that is incredible is how flexible the ship, the captain and the crew have to be in this environment. There have been several times throughout the trip when plans have had to be altered or changed completely because of ice and animals. They work a few extra days into the 10 days to ensure that they can be flexible without sacrificing any of the amazing things that we’re seeing.
Shout out to the incredible expedition team, led by Shane who’s famous (to a few of us at least) for ending his announcements with an energetic “see you about the ship!”
