This morning we woke up to another glorious sunny day! We have been truly spoiled with the weather so far, and today was again one of these magic mornings with stunning scenery all around us, the bay full of mesmerizing icebergs and the island full of nesting gentoo penguins.
After a relaxing breakfast on board National Geographic Orion we disembarked the vessel at 0900 for a landing at Cuverville Island, where we had the chance to freely roam around to observe the nesting Gentoos. The Gentoo penguins were spread out quite a bit on both sides of the landing beach, so there were plenty of places to sit down and just take it in, watch the penguins move via their penguin highways either to the colony or back down to the waters edge to go on their foraging trips.
Some of us decided to go on a hike up the snowfield to get a more elevated view across the bay and surrounding glaciers. The scenery was just magnificent, and even though all of us were taking plenty of pictures, we also knew these would never capture the moment of being completely surrounded by it all.
After three hours on land, we headed back to the ship via iceberg alley for a nice sumptuous lunch prepared by the galley team. National Geographic Orion always offers this nice warm and cosy place to come home to, and to warm up before the next afternoon landing.
This afternoon we had a chance to explore Errera Channel and the bay surrounded by majestic glaciers by Zodiac.
We disembarked the vessel at 1400 for an hour and half Zodiac cruise and very quickly we found Weddell seals hauling out on a little island. The expedition staff gave us a chance to set foot on the island to take a closer look. Afterwards we continued on through all the icebergs floating around in the bay. So many striking colors, shapes and sculptures. In each iceberg we could see something using our imagination. Suddenly we saw a blue umbrella amongst it all, and we knew what that meant…. the hotel boat with something nice and warm... We were spoiled with hot chocolate and kalua, a very nice wintery drink to keep us warm for the rest of the Zodiac cruise. While sipping away, we watched porpoising gentoo penguins, blue eyed shags and another crab eater seal on an ice floe. This afternoon was just a wonderful balance between natural beauty and wildlife.
In the evening we had a special cocktail party ‘Pristine Seas’ in which we learned a lot about this very special and successful project National Geographic/Lindblad has founded to try and protect some of our last pristine seas.
At 1900 another beautiful dinner was served in the dining room, which was followed by the famous Orion Crew Show! At least, we thought the crew show would start straight after dinner until our expedition leader Doug Gould announced there was an emperor penguin on the ice in front of the ship. This changed everything, as we all ran out on deck to watch this extraordinary species! What a find!
The crew show was postponed, but not for very long. We all ended up in the lounge and had a chance to enjoy dance and song by the very talented crew of National Geographic Orion. It was a great way to finish another beautiful day in Antarctica.
