Icy Waters, Spectacular Scenery, a Wedding and Port Lockroy

As we venture further south, the air is colder and the sea is littered with ice.  We boarded the Zodiacs to cruise Neko Harbor and encountered ice that we had to crunch through. The ice chunks we encountered are called Brash Ice and the larger ones, about the size of a standard car are called growlers or Bergies.  There is also sea ice which is thin and flat on the top (caused by the sea freezing) and block ice, the most dangerous because it is totally clear, hard to spot and very dense. During our zodiac tour our guide stopped the boat, turned off the engine, and let us take in the beauty of Neko Harbor - in silence - before exploring our landing site. 

The landing site provided us with beautiful views of the harbor and we observed numerous penguin colonies.  As we were coming back down the hill to our zodiac, two people from our ship were getting married near the coastline.

Sidebar – All of our days once we reached Antarctica had the same format.  We made two excursions a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  The excursions consisted of both a 90 minute zodiac cruise and a 90 minute shore landing.

 

For our second outing of the day, we visited Port Lockroy which is a British outpost staffed by four people for four months each year. This the first rime we have seen people other than our shipmates.

It is an historic post that has been refurbished and contains a store, museum and post office.  There is no running water and the people who are posted there depend on the cruise ships to take showers which they only get to have about once a week.  The four people work to maintain the outpost, run the store and museum, count the penguin population and serve as postmaster. These are the people who stamped our passports. The original post was inhabited by the British from 1944 until 1962.