Peterman Island & Prospect Point, Antarctica
Antarctica delights! Our second day became an adventure hard to score! Many plans had to be revised as you can expect here in the south. Still this makes everything into an expedition and as the day ended it turned out great!
We are already well trained about plans A, B, and C... and never take anything for granted. What will be next?
The morning started with a landing at Peterman Island. The island was discovered by a German Expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula 1873-74 and named after August Peterman a noted German geographer.
The whole fleet was soon in the water, including the kayaks. Even though Antarctica is described as the windiest and driest continent on Earth, today we had mostly the opposite.
With calm waters and some snow flakes in the air it was a perfect set up for a full morning outing. If you were not in a kayak you could spend time on the island, which has the worlds most southern colony of gentoo Penguins but also Adelie Penguins, cormorants, and skuas...
The more energetic hikers made it up to the peaks and could overview the surrounding waters.
During lunch we headed further south and now an old British hut at Prospect Point was the target. As we arrived and the scout boat went out it turned out to be impossible to reach the landing site. Mostly broken up sea ice had closed the waters. Instead we switched into something which turned into a fabulous Zodiac cruise.
We tackled the ice near the Fish Islands and found several crabeater seals – seal who, in truth, have never seen a crab. These seals were dubbed crabeaters in the early days of exploration, when sealers came to this part of the world. They called what we now recognize as krill, crab thereby leading to the confusion.
As always everybody was thrilled by the endless different ice sculptures. If you never have been to the polar regions and experienced ice, it is hard to imagine the difference in coloration and shape. No artists in the world, except nature, would be able to create anything close to the pieces we saw today.
As the sea had recently broken up, the water is at its freezing point and we had a breeze coming from the cold south, it was nice to arrive back to a warm and cozy Endeavour after about one hour out in a Zodiac.
Time for dinner but right before our Expedition leader announced the news. We are now heading further South to cross the Antarctic Circle S66.43. The last delight for this magical day!
You can never get enough of Antarctica, it is easy to become addicted! We are now a few minutes from crossing the Antarctic Circle.
Antarctica delights! Our second day became an adventure hard to score! Many plans had to be revised as you can expect here in the south. Still this makes everything into an expedition and as the day ended it turned out great!
We are already well trained about plans A, B, and C... and never take anything for granted. What will be next?
The morning started with a landing at Peterman Island. The island was discovered by a German Expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula 1873-74 and named after August Peterman a noted German geographer.
The whole fleet was soon in the water, including the kayaks. Even though Antarctica is described as the windiest and driest continent on Earth, today we had mostly the opposite.
With calm waters and some snow flakes in the air it was a perfect set up for a full morning outing. If you were not in a kayak you could spend time on the island, which has the worlds most southern colony of gentoo Penguins but also Adelie Penguins, cormorants, and skuas...
The more energetic hikers made it up to the peaks and could overview the surrounding waters.
During lunch we headed further south and now an old British hut at Prospect Point was the target. As we arrived and the scout boat went out it turned out to be impossible to reach the landing site. Mostly broken up sea ice had closed the waters. Instead we switched into something which turned into a fabulous Zodiac cruise.
We tackled the ice near the Fish Islands and found several crabeater seals – seal who, in truth, have never seen a crab. These seals were dubbed crabeaters in the early days of exploration, when sealers came to this part of the world. They called what we now recognize as krill, crab thereby leading to the confusion.
As always everybody was thrilled by the endless different ice sculptures. If you never have been to the polar regions and experienced ice, it is hard to imagine the difference in coloration and shape. No artists in the world, except nature, would be able to create anything close to the pieces we saw today.
As the sea had recently broken up, the water is at its freezing point and we had a breeze coming from the cold south, it was nice to arrive back to a warm and cozy Endeavour after about one hour out in a Zodiac.
Time for dinner but right before our Expedition leader announced the news. We are now heading further South to cross the Antarctic Circle S66.43. The last delight for this magical day!
You can never get enough of Antarctica, it is easy to become addicted! We are now a few minutes from crossing the Antarctic Circle.
