Saturday, February 22nd, 2014
We woke up to another slightly gloomy morning in Antarctica...but hey it's Antarctica. Can't expect the sun to shine all the time.
This morning we were heading out to visit the Yalour Islands. Unlike some of our recent landings, Yalour Island offered us a large, open area to wonder around in. Was actually very nice because it allowed some space from the other passengers to just sit and enjoy the wildlife.
Looking a little gloomy as we head out to see the Yalour Islands.
With the gloomy skies those blue icebergs look very bright and pretty.
Hmmm.....something's missing in this picture. These are Adelie penguins. The area we explored was home to a large Adelie colony.
Of course you cannot go very far without finding some cute little fur seals. These guys were waiting for us when we got off the zodiacs.
Hello to you too!
A few more of the Adelies who live in this area.
The area was full of lots of beautiful icebergs.
Was able to just sit and enjoy this view for a while.
The ship sitting in the shadows of our gloomy morning.
Do you sometimes feel, you know, a little insignificant? That's Jeff in the red jacket.....and that is one giant iceberg behind him.
The ship peaking up over the rocks.
After some time we hopped into the zodiacs for a little tour around the area to see what wonderful things we could find.
A look at some of the ice that can build up around the zodiac motor. The ice here is a few different colours. This will be based on the age. The farther away from white in colour, the older the ice. The oldest ice is known as black ice but will actually appear clear. Black ice will be tens of thousands of year old.
A look at a very unstable iceberg. When they start rocking like this you do not want to get too close as they can roll over at anytime. You can hear Bob at the end of this video explaining the colour differences. Bob is the resident ice expert on the M/S Expedition.
A couple crabeater seals, doing what they do best.....hanging out.
As always, we had a couple hours to check out the island and the water around it before lunch and then we headed to our second stop of the day. This time we had to split into 3 groups to accommodate the allowed numbers in the area. My first stop was at Wordie House, another British Antarctic Heritage site that has been preserved from its early days of polar research. Again lots of interesting items to look at.
Pretty sure none of this is edible but again cool to see all the old supplies. Explorers and researchers would have needed to be pretty good at rationing food, just in case the ice lasted longer than usual and they were stuck for bit. I'm sure a few seals were eaten but have been told that penguins are not a very good eat.
A few more of the stocked shelves.
Dart board. Need a little entertainment on cold dark nights in Antarctica.
Hmmm.....can't imagine writing all my reports and communicating with the outside world with all this old stuff but I'm sure it more than did the trick at the time.
The very bright sky on this much sunnier afternoon.
The panoramic view from the top of my little hill climb behind Wordie House.
After checking out Wordie House and the beautiful view, I hopped in a zodiac to take a quick ride around the area. More than a few penguins and icebergs and some really nice waves. J.J (today's zodiac driver) likes to take the waves a little bit faster than some of the other drivers......so it was a fun ride.
The nice calm water in our nice protected cove.
The difference when we turned the corner and headed out into slightly more open water.
A little lonely penguin.....with a really nice view.
After the zodiac ride it was time to head to the last stop of the afternoon, Vernadsky Station. This is the Ukrainian research base. The base used to belong to Britain, however when they decided to move on they sold it to the Ukraine for 1 British pound. The rules in Antarctica say that any buildings, stations etc have to be either used and maintained or removed by the owners. So for the British it was cheaper to sell it to the Ukrainians for 1 pound than it was to remove all the buildings and return the area to its previous state. We're happy they did. Vernadsky Station offers far more access than any other station so we got a look at how the researchers live day to day.
This points out the distance to many of the major cities in the world. A long ways from anywhere and everywhere.
The doctor's office. Pretty basic but has to do when down here.
The gym.....also very basic but I guess you take what you can get when living in Antarctica.
The view from the upper floor. The station also hosts a gift shop, post office and a bar......yep a bar.
A bar with a pretty good view.
Enjoying a drink at the Southern Most Bar in the world!!! The Ukrainians make their own cinnamon vodka and sell it to tourists for a very affordable 3USD a shot. The bar is actually quite famous and you can see it is decorated with a few items left by tourists (there is a pair of those famous little red mittens with the maple leaf on the palm from the 2010 Olympics). You can also pay for drinks by leaving a bra (you can see the collection behind me so more than a few ladies have done it).
After a couple shots of very strong Ukrainian home brew many of us were ready for our evening. It started out with a black and white dinner. In honour of our penguin friends, they asked us all to dress in black and white. After dinner we all (well most of us) made our way down to the Polar Bear Lounge where we were treated to some live music by the crew band known as the Monkey Eating Eagles.
A quick look at the band, made up entirely of members of the M/S Expedition crew.
The Monkey Eating Eagles are named after the bird from the Philippines that happen to be critically endangered. All the band members are from the Philippines and the fight to save them is an important cause to them. So many of us now have Monkey Eating Eagles t-shirts in support of the cause and spent the evening enjoying the music.
On this night we also partook in something that I will say I will never have the opportunity to do again.....have a gin and tonic poured over some roughly 20,000 year old ice. During the day Bob pulled some black ice out of the water and we spent the night chiseling it off to keep our drinks cold.
While enjoying the drinks and after the Monkey Eating Eagles played, the night continued with something that I have been told has never happened on the M/S Expedition before. A bunch of us got up, formed a band and played for a couple more hours. We fondly called ourselves The Passengers. The band members changed throughout the show. We weren't always playing the same song. We didn't always know the words or the cords but we sure had a lot of fun.
The Passengers.
The next morning we found out that the whole night was caught on video via someone's GoPro so we have real video evidence of the show. I won't subject you to the whole thing but here is the first song we played. We weren't that bad, right?
The first song we played. We sounded a lot better when we all knew the song. The rest of our set involved a whole lot of different types of music. Different people took turns singing and playing. There are a few more hours worth of video....but some of it is a little cringe worthy. But we got a lot of positive comments the next day though so at least people enjoyed it.
Eventually we went to bed after what was a really great night. Tomorrow we would spend our final day in Antarctica.
Julie
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