Astrolabe Island

We had beautiful gentle cruising today amongst islands, icebergs and increasing amounts of sea ice. We were supposed to go to Gourdin Island but it had to be changed to Astrolabe island due to too much ice in the bay. We had an excellent series of lectures and talks this morning. Our historian Jane was in fine fettle telling us the story of the Belgica Expedition. She subtitled it the "promenade of the madhouse or saved by the penguins". It told about the impact of scurvy on Antarctic exploration and how the mean were saved by eating "lightly cooked" penguins and seals. She is a brilliant story teller. We then had a small group discussion "how to design a whale" by looking at replica skulls and flippers, which compared cetaceans being either odontocetes (toothed whales) with mysticetes ( baleen or moustached) whales, about the melon in whales which focus sound waves produced by monkey lips.
During the next geology lecture, I became increasingly migrainous. I took an Immigan injection, went to bed and slept for 5 hours. I missed the landing and walk on Astrolabe island. But it's maybe just as well as it was a very stoney icy beach. The wee Chinese boy (the only child onboard ) fell into the sea whilst on the beach and needed hosed down as he got covered with guano. His mum said to me that he was being a true penguin, moving from land to sea.
When I pulled back the blind on waking up, there was an amazing dragons teeth rock and ice landscape. On level 7 the view of the icebergs and snow covered mountain peaks. I managed a bit of dinner and feel ok. Tomorrow we head north to the South Shetland Islands with a planned landing on Half- moon Island and in the afternoon Deception Island which is an active volcano. We have an option of doing a polar plunge.Weiterlesen