Good Evening.  

Today was another fantastic day in Antartica.  We cruised out of the South Shetland Islands and arrived in the Antartica Peninsula.  We went to Two Hummock Island which is an ice covered island.  The western area of the island is called Palaver Point and that is where the morning was spent.  There were two choices, kayak or hike. Marti chose to kayak with a friend we met on the ship and had an amazing time.  The waters were rocky but the paddlers were able to maintain.  They then returned to the ship to warm up.  The other group hiked up a mountain that was snow covered and full of penguins.  They got as close as could be.  

There were a lot of chin strap penguins.  They are called chin straps because there is a thin black line underneath their chins and it makes them look like they are wearing a helmet.  When all of the groups returned to the ship, we headed out to Kayak Bay.  It was not too far from Two Hummock Island and it was a beautiful area.  

Today’s lunch we ate at the Grill.  It is an outdoor restaurant, on the ship.  Yes, outdoor.  It was freezing cold and even the blankets that they provide do not help.  We had a dinner reservation scheduled there for tonight but…….

We then had a quick cappuccino and had to get ready for the afternoon excursion. Today was a four layer day.  The temperature was allegedly 35 f but I am not sure they are telling the truth. Lol.  It was windy, cold and snowy the entire time we were out on the Zodiac.  We learned a lot about the birds of the Antarctic and how they survive.    
There were thousands of penguins mating and we were able to watch the ritual of the male penguins switching from finding food to sitting on the egg.  We saw them make their way up the mountain/glacier where their nest was and we saw many of them come down to the water to forge for food. 

It is quite a process in this cold, wet and icy climate. 

We were also all definitely on Whale and Seal watch but alas, there were none to see, at least for our group.    A couple of the other groups saw a whale breaching.  

Kayak Bay is an incredible area – from any given point you could turn 360 degrees and see massive mountains and glaciers. It was a bit cloudy, but that just made the peaks peeking out that much more amazing.

The briefing and recap meeting was interesting and fun.  Mostly everyone attends and we review some of the things that happened during the day and we go over every detail for tomorrows landing.

We pulled out of Kayak Bay and the waters were calm and the sun came out.  It was stunning.  After the briefing, we were just walking around the ship, waiting for dinner and we ran into a Shabbat service.   It was self lead and we said a few prayers, met a few people and played Jewish Geography.  

After dinner, we went to play a fun game in the bar called Name Five.  We played in teams and our team turns out to be a bunch of people, from all over the world that we have been hanging out with at night.  There is one from Dubai, England, a bunch from the States.  It’s made the evenings a lot of fun.  We then stayed and played our own card game until everyone had to get some sleep for our early morning Zodiac Ride. 

Cici from Sea signing off…..