Last excursion - Vernadsky Research Base

Sadly our last excursion this morning. The good news for us was that our start time was 10am. The weather had improved by the time we went out, the clouds had lifted and although there was some sun it was still really cold. The closer we got to the Antarctic base the better the weather was. It is remarkable how still the sea is, I can't imagine being in a zodiac if the ocean isn't calm. It would make for a very unpleasant ride.

This is our last opportunity to see this landscape of icebergs. On the way to our destination the English scientific base F, now Ukrainian, we see numerous Leopard seals. One seal follows our zodiac, hard to photograph given 10 people in a zodiac all wanting the perfect shot. Unnecessary really because we saw quite a few. I find just watching to be really good. They are a really large seal or maybe it's just hard to get a perspective until you are up close. We saw one really close to us in the water as it swam they are big. One put its head on the side of a zodiac near us and someone got the photo, amazing.

As we neared the hut we saw more birds than we have seen in a while. There are Kelp gulls and very pretty Storm Petrels who flit in and out of the water after food, it looks like they are dancing. There is a narrow channel that leads to the hut we are visiting, I can see a landing place and a zodiac from our ship tied up at the bottom of the steps but not where we land. It turns out to be the captain's zodiac he of course has been invited onto the base and has gone inside. The zodiac meanders through somewhere I think is called Hidden Bay, of course surrounded by icebergs.

There is a small area in front of the Wordie House where we land it's a little rocky but not as bad as we have faced before. We are only allowed into one hut, on the base. It's in really good condition with most of the things of the scientists who worked there still there. Scientific instruments, furniture, food and cooking equipment. It gave us such a good perspective of life on these bases and how cold and difficult it would have been

The ride back in the zodiac gave us even more opportunity to observe leopard seals. One of the seals lying on the iceberg made a strange sound. Our guide was very excited and asked us to be quiet and what we heard was the seal vocalizing. This is apparently really rare to hear, the seal is singing and even more remarkably someone in our zodiac actually recorded it. This and the head of a seal on the zodiac earlier were shown and played at our briefing in the evening.Read more