A Very Merry Christmas from Antarctica from the crew and passengers of Hans Hansson!
Antarctica has given us a great Christmas gift of good weather! In fact its hard to believe Christmas Eve and Christmas were only 2 days – so many things happened!!!!
Christmas morning we sailed through Wilhelmina and enjoyed two pairs of humpback whales! The clouds were just starting to lift revealing at first the base and then some summits of the mountains surrounding the bay. We continued on and had a GLORIOUS late afternoon / evening at Cuverville – an Island with a pebble / rocky beach facing a bay of icebergs. Gentoo penguins regularly arrive back from fishing an exit the water here on the beach. Some passengers decided to hike up the hill behind the beach for great views of the icebergs from above – the rest wandered over to penguin colonies and watched a lone molting young elephant seal. As the afternoon wore into evening, the sun cast its magic spell across the icebergs, the mountains and us!
We were pulled away from the beach to be greeted by a feast prepared by our cook, Sarah – a great evening was had by all – good food, fun gifts, mulled wine and Christmas Crackers.
Today on Christmas day, the blue skies continued as we explored Neko Harbor – home to very large icebergs. Passengers are now ashore at Waterboat point to visit a Chilean base and visit some penguins on this Christmas day.
Again a Merry Christmas to all – I hope you’ve had a white Christmas – we sure have!
– Laura & Hans Hansson
