Farewell, Antarctic Peninsula

Today was our last day in the Antarctic Peninsula before heading back in the direction of home. It was hard not to feel a bit gloomy about that, but the two stops we made today made it difficult to stay sad for long. We started off at Paradise Harbour, which featured palm trees and sand beaches. Just kidding. Maybe that’s just what I have thought of as Paradise before hitting this landing.

Paradise Harbour had dramatic cliffs with Antarctic birds nesting off the sides of those cliffs. It sounded like the aviary at the zoo with constant commotion. These birds were so active, that one of the zodiac cruises got ‘poop-bombed,’ as they told me- one whole side of the zodiac (4-5 people) got bird poop on themselves and their gear! Sounds like a very immersive experience that I’m ok missing out on.

Paradise Harbour is home to the Argentine research station named Brown Base. The steps out front were shoveled, but the only inhabitants looked to be a large quantity of penguins.

I’ve really grown accustomed to hitting the hot chocolate zodiac each time we are out exploring- the hotel manager of the ship and his crew always have hot chocolate for us, and they dress up as Vikings, or today they were dressed as Santa Clauses. They play music and keep the chocolate coming.

While we were out on our zodiac cruise, we found this Weddell Seal. He was rolling around, lifting his tail, making eye contact with us. To quote the naturalist piloting our zodiac “That was a great seal encounter!”

We went back on the ship for lunch, before entering Neko Harbor. For this stop, we had our very last Antarctic landing- we got to climb up the highest incline yet. I did not go up to the top, as I saw the fog/snow was obscuring the top view and I was enjoying watching the penguins. While we were there, we heard a massive glacier calving, but it was not visible to me or to those who went to the very top (they said the view was pretty foggy, so I was glad I assessed that situation correctly). It was snowing by this time- big, thick flakes, and so I headed back down to beach level. I enjoyed seeing the penguins traveling on their penguin highways. They really are comical creatures to watch.

After our landing, we got our final zodiac tour. It was snowing pretty heavily now, but the water was so calm. It made for such gorgeous pictures with the glaciers and icebergs reflecting off of the water. What a dramatic last experience in Antarctica!

Throughout the day, we’ve been watching Humpback whales traveling with the ship. In fact, even as I am writing this blog, our ship is spinning in circles as we watch Humpbacks on all sides of us. It seems like they are waving us off from our journey. We just got to watch a mother Humpback whale and a baby Humpback whale feeding for over an hour!

I got to write the Daily Expedition Report for today. This report gets emailed out to all of the guests and their chosen family members. It was really fun to write, and hopefully people are receiving this, as mine keeps ending up in my junk emails.

Alright, tomorrow is the Drake…. Here’s hoping for the Drake Lake on the way back. I will spend the next 4 days working my way home, and will update along the way! Farewell, Antarctica…I am really going to miss you!