Penola Strait, Yalour Islands, Port Charcot, Lemaire Channel – 19 March

We awoke sailing up the Penola Strait at 3 degrees with an overcast sky. Heading for Yalour Islands. A fairly calm trip overnight, but did take a seasick tablet as the ship was moving about a bit.

Photography boats are being called for so we have our names down, hoping for Richard today.

We meet up for breaky then back to cabins to get our outside landing gear on. Thermal socks, pants and top, with layers of clothing on top. For me I just have thermals and water proof ski pants with thermal socks and thicker merino socks ( thanks AP.) On top thermal long sleeve, merino tshirt today and merino long sleeve top, then the jackets provided by Aurora – down jacket and overcoat. A merino neck buff/Shute, merino beanie, polar fleece beanie, merino liner gloves and waterproof gloves as well. In the mudroom we ditch our shoes in our little locker and add ‘muck boots,’ basically very good gum boots. When moving around on landings it’s very warm, but any wind or moving in the zodiacs and it’s cold. The fingers are the worst – holding on to very cold cameras exacerbates the cold.

Due to the wave action on Yalour Islands the landing was cancelled and we had a longer photography zodiac cruise with Max. We ticked a few more things off the list – Gentoo Penguins, Humpback whales, crabeater seal, Phil saw a leopard seal in the water too, along with icebergs, icebergs and more icebergs. Again there was snow as we left the boat but then it stopped and we had pretty smooth seas for the zodiac cruise.

Back to ship for lunch and then we were sailing down an amazing channel with towering mountains and snow/ice capped glaciers. Then it was time to get ready for PM landing at Port Charcot and zodiac cruise around the grounded icebergs of Pleneau Channel. The landing at Charcot had us land and walk up to view a colony of Gentoo penguins with some Skuas and giant petrels , a seal or two, there was also an view into a bay of icebergs. We landed on rocks with towels laid down to walk on. After the walk to the penguins we walked a little way in the other direction with a view of more penguins and birds. There was a longer walk up to a commemorative cairn on top of the hill but we didn’t have time before needing to be back for our photography zodiac cruise with Max – again many icebergs, porpoising penguins, crabeater seals, Skuas, gulls, Antarctic terns, Cormorants or Shags.

Back on ship to await the return of last zodiacs before weighing anchor to head through the most spectacular Lemaire channel. We kept our landing warm clothes on on Howard’s advice. What a trip! The channel is flanked by meringue like glacier topped mountains with rock the colour of chocolate ripple bickies. Many people both passengers and crew were out on deck to watch the trip down the channel. At the end it was hard to see how the ship could get out with icebergs everywhere, of course they wended their way through.

The whole day was stunning, it’s impossible to sum up.

A bit after 7 we attended the recap/precap for a short lecture by Julia on the Humpback whales which we have seen today.

Howard talked about Una’s Tits, which is the name of some of the mountains in Lemaire Channel. Then back to cabin for a quick change and up for a late dinner. We are all pretty tired – it’s been go, go, go.

Time to return to cabins to downlaod photos, shower, do some washing and get to bed.

It’s also important to check the board for the Daily Plan for the next day. Turns out we only had a short journey during dinner to arrive at our destination for tomorrow – Goudier Island/Jougla Point in the morning. So a quiet night hopefully.