Happy Thanksgiving! It doesn’t really feel like it Thanksgiving much here, more like an early winter wonderland with the stunning scenery that surrounds us in Neko Harbor.
This is our last chance to go ashore and we made the most of it with the official continental landing. We were greeted by the every busy gentoo penguins making their way back and forth up the steep slopes to their nesting sites. It is early season so we saw lots of penguins calling and displaying to each other. But one of the true highlights of this part of the season is to see a penguin steal the small pebbles from a nearby nest. If the original owner is already sitting on an egg, it can’t really stop the determined stone stealer and it is priceless to watch these interactions.
There was also a chance for a wonderful leg stretch to the top of the hill for an overview of the glacier’s encircling this beautiful stretch of the Antarctic Peninsula. Our fearless expedition leader Lisa Kelley made sure to make the most of the morning as we also had a chance to go kayaking in the still waters surrounding the ship. There was lots of brash ice being pushed around by the tide so it was great fun to paddle through it and feel like the early explorers. Under some of the larger pieces of ice were Antarctic krill. This small shrimp like creature is the main prey for the penguins, seals, and most of the whales that are here during the summer.
After lunch we dropped off staff members Eric Guth and Santiago Imberti to have a very steep hike up a hill near Orne Harbor to collect some time lapse data for the Extreme Ice Survey. We try to help out as many scientific research programs as we can while in this challenging area. The wonderful result is that we are some of the first people to see what the cameras have recorded throughout the last winter and early summer. All and all it was a great way to end our time in this unique and very special part of planet Earth.
