Brian, Passenger
Day 7 of our incredibly phenomenal Antarctic adventure had us wake up in Paradise Harbor to pancakes with berries, pears, bananas, and eggs and bacon. Off at 9:30 for a Zodiac tour that started with a bang…the crack of a calving iceberg. We heard it, but did not see it. Weather was overcast, dry, in the low thirties and some wind. Within minutes we saw porpoising penguins. Matias, who speaks only five languages and today was a Zodiac driver, spotted a whale. Our two zodiacs followed it at a distance. Our reward was spotting its whale tail when it dove (one of many whale tails observed on this trip). Then it was off to zodiac around Chilean research base that was home to thousands of penguins and today was overrun by green-parka-ed tourists from the large cruise ship World Traveller. This prompted someone to observe that we were glad to be on the much smaller Hans Hansson that did not require everybody to wear the same color parka. We Zodiac-ed on to another large gentoo penguin colony. We then Zodiac-ed back to the Hans Hansson.
Lunch was tuna and artichoke salad. Captain Julian and his team repositioned the boat to avoid 70-mph winds. A short rest followed, and it was back in the Zodiacs for a three-hour tour around Danco Island. We saw spectacular landscapes, humpback whales, leopard, fur and weddell seals, storm petrals, skags, skuas, kelp gulls, antarctic terns, snowy sheathbills and three or four thousand penguins. Most of the seals were sleeping on icebergs because that is what they do. One humpback whale was also sleeping. One Zodiac, considered the better of the two, observed krill and a giant white petral.
Dinner was pork steaks (the vegetarian in the group had eggplant something), sweet potato mash, and carrot salad with eggs. Dessert was poached pears. It was delicious.
Adding panache to a great adventure are fellow travellers Colin, Philippa, Jeffrey, Anne, Matt, Marlis, Sheryl, John, Nicholas, and Daniel. The crew (Julian, Alex, Joanne, Daniel, Jason, Becky, Joel, Matias and aided by Alejo and Bianca in Punta Arenas) are highly skilled. Together, the group is a mini UN representing at least six countries.
