Cruising Antarctica waters is highly unusual in many respects, not the least due to the fact that the itinerary is largely determined by Mother Nature. The Navigator's normally rigid schedule can be completely disrupted by ice and meteorological conditions. However, we seen spectacular natural scenery, as we weave our way through narrow channels and bays. Many places the captain wanted to take us, however the channel would be blocked by massive ice, and he'd take another route through a different channel. Today, we cruise through Paradise Bay, Cuverville Island and Deception Island.
Christmas Eve and I'd go outside until my feet began to freeze and then run back in to the beautiful Christmas music playing throughout the ship. What wonder, what an amazing feeling to be where I am!!
The blue ice is the amount of oxygen compressed within the ice, which creates beautiful coloration from crystalline white, through shades of blue, green to a deep purple. Also, so many names to the ice, growlers is one, the rest I forget! The flat ones that look like Styrofoam are really neat too!
Incredible sights to see, and so many!!
Tom was no fool! He stayed where it was warm, watched out the window and had an never ending cup of coffee! People where in and out most of the morning, and then at lunch, everyone poured in to get warm and have something to eat. There was commentary from our wonderful experts that knew the area.
We had lunch with Wohpeng and Colin and after lunch, Tom went to read and I went to computer class. The room was freezing cold and I almost put my gloves o to type! The poor teacher was wrapped in a blanket. Only this room was cold, although, the ship had cold spots and warm spots! I unluckily usually found a cold spot to sit!!
Penguins!!! The first as spotting them, however I hear later the other side of the ship had a penguin colony!! Drats!! No worries, as we come to more and see THOUSANDS!! I couldn't get my camera to zoom to it's fullest and had to run upstairs to the photo lab later on, to have him show me what I'm doing wrong. Of course you see something and get all panic stricken and make one mistake after another!!! I do get my camera working and zooming later! This was a bunch sitting on the ice and the next picture.....those little dots...are penguins walking up the hill. I bet your thrilled about these shots eh....just wait!!!
I was excited!!
So, we keep on cruising in this land of huge icebergs and I keep snapping pictures, but how many can you show people! After awhile we come to a channel the Captain was going to take us down where we could reach out and touch the side of the ice, with little clearance on each side of the ship, but the channel was blocked by too much ice. Our pilot, and commentator Patrick Tooney told the Captain, he'd give him $100.00 to go in the channel, and you could hear them dickering with bets to $300.00 but the Captain, said no way to any amount!!
The rest of the day, we both decided that we'd skip the entertainment even if it was Christmas Eve! We had a nice dinner. The entertainment was called Tribute, with the singers and dancers and fancy Bob Macki outfits, which we've seen on other cruises, and really didn't care for that kind of show, so we had an early night. Our day began at 5:30 am and we we're tired!
Penguin's tomorrow!!
