Thursday, January 16, 2011
This morning we were anchored in Marguerite Bay and went ashore to Bongrain Point, Porquoi Pas Island.
Here we saw Adélie Penguins and their chicks. The small colony was about a 15 minute walk from the landing site and there were also some Adèlies gathered at the beach. There was penguin traffic between the beach and the colony in order to feed their chicks. We also saw a Skewer pair defending their 2 cute chicks. Some people didn’t seem to get the meaning of ‘walk from flag to flag’. On every landing our expedition leaders go ashore first to stake out routes for us to walk along, to avoid, or at least minimize, impact on the wildlife. Mostly people were very good at following instructions, but today for some reason some people seemed to think it was ok to crouch in on the birds. Luckily the team members always stayed put to guide everyone back onto the yellow brick road!
On our zodiac cruise between the icebergs with Rod we saw crabeater seals, blue-eyed shags (comorants) and Adélies.
We also reached our farthest point south: 67° 49′ – a new record for The World – and most tourist vessel don’t go too much further since there are no soundings further south.
With everyone back on board our captain cruised The Gullet (back north) in search for a favorable site for the Polar Plunge.
At 4pm he found it. We dropped anchor and 37 plungers-to-be and lots of onlookers gathered on Deck 5 where the back had been lowered. Our zodiac drivers first had to push some pack-ice out of the way and once that was done there was no turning back.
I was very early in the group. And I just… well.. jumped! The first few seconds (impact and surfacing) the body doesn’t seem to realize what it has been subjected too. But shortly after that I knew beyond a doubt that it was very, very cold!!!! I scrambled for the ladder without any thought for the ‘paparazzi’ out in the zodiacs :-). Grabbed my bathrobe and made a b-line straight to the warm pool and liqueurs! Never thought I would do this and am very proud of myself!
Caroline.
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