First stop: Barrientos

I woke up feeling MUCH better today, and craving some food. I finally checked out the ship’s breakfast buffet. Oatmeal and fruit was a great start. Loving this magic patch! The best $25 I’ve spent in a long time. Now that I feel better, I enjoy the rocking action of the boat and I can be impressed with the strength and size of the waves. One of the things I love about the ocean is that it is so massive and strong. Down here, it’s even more impressive because you can look out a window and see the huge waves that jostle this ship (over 105m long and nearly 19 meters wide). Now, rather than praying to God that I don’t vomit (that was my honest prayer most of yesterday), I can marvel at the work of His hands and the strength of His creation.



We passed the Antarctic conversion around 4am, so we’re getting quite close! After breakfast we had a briefing about how to treat Antarctica (bring nothing on and taking nothing off), how to dress, how to get in and out of a Zodiac, how to treat the animals, etc. My favorite quote from one of the expedition leaders was “There is not such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothes.” We got our boots and lockers, and we signed up for our Zodiac groups for this afternoon’s first landing in the South Shetland islands. The excitement on the ship was palpable.


At 1:30pm we boarded Zodiacs to head to the Aitcho Islands, specifically to Barrientos (between Robert and Greenwich islands).



Keeping the “inappropriate clothing” quote in mind, I dressed in many layers:
* Top: thermal top, turtleneck, fleece vest, down undercoat, and waterproof overcoat
* Bottom: thermal bottoms, fleece bottoms, and waterproof ski pants
* Feet: polypropylene liner, wool socks, heavy mountaineering socks, rubber boots
* Head/neck: fleece neck gaiter, faux fur-lined waterproof hat
* Hands: warm liners, rubber outer gloves

All in all, I was warm enough. My toes got cold, but that was it. I feel good about that ensemble, as it was warm but not too hard to move.

On Barrientos, we saw a gentoo penguin colony, many chinstrap penguins, and one adélie penguin:



A few things that surprised me about these penguins:
• The penguin colony smells horrible. One of my mates said “They live in complete squalor.” and another said “Pigs are cleaner than penguins.” I have to agree, the stench was so bad, and they seem to just roll around in their guano.
• They made a sound that I wasn’t expecting. I guess I don’t know what I thought penguins would sound like, but it surprised me.

• Penguins are as graceful in the water as I expected, but they’re far more proficient on land than the literature would lead you to believe. They climbed the snow hills much better than I could.



• They build their nests with stones (200-1,000) and they are so funny! I saw countless penguins walking with a mission for 20 yards, and then selecting a single stone and walking back to their nest. There are hundreds of thousands of stones, and they are very particular. They also steal stones from each others' nests.

We saw a lot of nesting penguins, and one time I saw a penguin actually sit on his/her egg. The gentoo share incubating the egg – dad sits while mom goes to eat, mom sits so dad can go eat.

We also saw Weddell seals, just big blubbery animals. We saw a mom and her cub, and the baby was big! They are the southernmost mammal in the world and they can stay submerged for more than an hour.

On the other side of the island, we saw a herd of southern elephant seals. The crew jokes that they are the only animal that smells better dead than alive! They roll around in their own excrement and it’s quite disgusting. They “roar” by inserting their nose into their mouth and snorting air through a funnel they create with their tongue. The resulting sound reminds me of bad gas. The louder it is, the more attractive to the female. I guess that’s why I’m a female human and not a seal, because I don’t find that sound attractive at all! Anyway, they are the largest of all seals (males can weigh more than two hippos), and they can dive up to 1 mile underwater. They spend more than 80% of their time in the ocean, so we were lucky to see so many of them. We even saw one that was molting their skin and fur (it’s fine like mink).


Tonight was Captain’s Dinner, and I was invited to sit at one of the three captain’s tables. I still don’t know why, but it was very nice. I sat with the purser and the hotel director, and the captain sat the table next to us with his guests. The staff has been wonderful and attentive, and the food is delicious. We’re really getting spoiled! They turn down our beds every night and clean our rooms and bathrooms daily (especially important since the shower curtain is so flimsy and as the boat moves, I get more water outside the shower than I do get on me). The expedition leaders are incredibly smart and knowledgeable, the staff is very friendly, and my fellow passengers are a lot of fun. Tomorrow, we set foot on the continent!!!