One of us was up around 5am and greeted with a bright sunny morning. There was one not so nice thing about this morning, and that was the lack of hot water. What a surprise to take a shower that was tepid at best, then have it turn cold. Whatever the problem they thought they fixed yesterday was only half done we guess. No doubt everyone involved in our quadrant had called the front desk folks and asked about it. But we will add our phone call right away with hopes that it will go back to normal soon. The hot water did return but not until later in the afternoon.
Anyway, the scenery outside our veranda was stunning enough for the Captain to come on the speakers at 6:45am to announce for everyone to wake up and go look at what he found for us. We were somewhere in Gerlache Strait which was surrounded by ice-covered mountains. The temperature was 1 degree Celsius, which was close to 34 degrees F. There was barely a breeze and the waters were calm. In no time, whales appeared blowing their spouts, surface feeding, and doing shallow dives. What a way to start the day.
Needing some hot coffee, we went off to breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill, which you know has no real windows. Just as we kidded, the Captain came on halfway during our meal and announced humpback whales were bubble-feeding. Many guests left the room to duck out the now-opened bow for a quick photo. We have seen this behavior on previous trips, so it wasn't something to let your meal get cold. In fact, the ship was at a stand-still and the whales were not on the move. We would see this later.
Traveling deeper into Gerlache Strait, we stopped at Wilhelmina Bay where we saw many more whales feeding, diving, and displaying their diving tails. We also sailed past an iceberg with a sea lion on it. This large creature barely moved until we were past it. Then he lifted his head in annoyance and laid back down. At this point, we were having problems with the sound on our TV. There was some commentary happening, but we had no sound on the bow camera channel. The echo outside was bad, so the talking could not be understood. So we called the front desk gal and she re-booted our TV remotely. It worked and we were glad she could fix it.
Around 11:15am, we were near Emma Island looking for more wildlife. Captain Rens came on with his talk later than usual and said he was heading towards Higgins Bay in search of penguins and sea lions. Right in front of us was a peak that towered at 935 feet. About the same time we were getting lots of photos of the whales, an expedition vessel by the name of Aurora Expeditions was coming our way. The Captain explained that they had priority here because they had made "reservations". Shortly after we began heading out of this bay, another ship was on the way. The name of this expedition ship was Roald Amundsen, named after the famous Norwegian explorer.
Then we headed for Cuverville Island where we saw the largest gentoo penguin colony in the Antarctic Peninsula. Among the gentoos, we also spotted some chinstraps. This colony was at the base of a bare mountain where the icy banks and surrounding shoreline were tinted deep pink. This stood out more than the penguins themselves. And we are sure you have guessed what turned the ice pink? Yep, it was the guano they leave behind. Honestly, without a zoom lens on the camera, seeing these penguins was difficult. It was even hard to make out the thousands of penguins using binoculars. The surrounding waters were full of diving penguins feeding. Sometimes there are leopard seals or killer whales hunting them, but we did not see any predators today.
We believe there was a third ship on the way, so we headed out to another bay where the Captain said he was going to get up and close to three icebergs while playing the theme song from the Titanic. Surely he was kidding about the run-in with icebergs, but he did have them play a few seconds of the famous song. Then it stopped. We seem to recall that there is a noise level in these waters and playing loud music would not be acceptable. And besides, there were humpbacks diving all around this area, and he may have risked a fine at the very least. Our camera was on fire with all of the photos presented to us today. Besides the numbers of whales, we also saw not only Adelie and gentoo penguins, but also the chinstraps. The sightings of the humpback whales far exceeded what we have seen while in Alaskan waters. Hundreds of penguin photos were snapped during the course of the day.
Eventually, we left the scene as did most of the guests that had braved the cold while viewing from the bow and deck six forward. As long as we are on the subject of ice forms, here is the explanation of the main types. Icebergs are at least 16.5 feet above the sea level and obviously higher many of the times. Bergy bits are 3.2 to 8.2 feet above the waves. Ice less than 1 meter or 3 feet in height are called growlers, due to the noise they made on the sides of old wooden ships. The smallest ice is called brash ice and can be as small as a hamster. They crackle as they melt in the sea water. We'll include more ice descriptions tomorrow
The scenery continued for the rest of the day, even during dinner when we saw a gigantic mountain of an iceberg. It appeared by looking at the TV monitors that the ship was doing zigzags, and staying in one area. We do recall that they take the ship out of the area for the night, then return in the wee hours of the morning. According to what we heard, we will not be going much further south. By the way, we were able to locate yesterday's recap of the expedition team on the TV. At least we picked up the course the ship had taken and why we missed Elephant Island and passing through Hope Bay. There does not appear to be a set plan for this Antarctic Exploration like they do with an Alaska cruise when we go into Glacier Bay. We guess the conditions are ever-changing and the best thought out plans can change instantly.
Dinner was good with two salads, a chicken pho soup, seafood cocktail and entrees of sticky pork belly with pineapple soy sauce and coconut rice. Very different, but nice for a change. We tried a cheese platter to share for dessert but found it a heavy way to end a meal. One of us is very picky about cheese, and one of the choices was not that great. A mouthful of candied ginger might do the trick to erase the nasty taste on the way out….
A dance duo team of May Roman & Williams Malpezzi performed a "Love Story" performance. The elements of the four seasons was the theme.
More scenic sailing tomorrow.
Bill & Mary Ann
