Day 19: Antarctica Archipelago, Peninsula and Sound, Cierva Cove in morning and Mikkelsen Harbour in the afternoon

Day 19: Antarctica Archipelago, Peninsula and Sound, Cierva Cove in morning and Mikkelsen Harbour in the afternoon

Weather: Cold of course because there’s a blizzard, practically a white-out, in the early morning then clearing for great kayaking and Zodiac’ing, and in the late afternoon sinking to well below zero with pellets in the air instead of snow flakes

Quote of The Day:  Where are we? HAH! Because of the snow the morning and afternoon locations are reversed

DB passes on the kayaking along with 5 others as the weather outside is full of snowfall. THB (kayak #5) pairs up with Tim and he is so even-tempered that THB can’t always tell whether to veer right away because of imminent collisions with ice or just to gently guide the kayak left or right. Hardly matters, we’re rarely in any difficulty.

And, DB has made a huge mistake, the kayaking is off-the-charts awesome. Tons of great icebergs up close and personal, a seal sighting, a flock of penguins swimming just behind the kayaks, and one lone Gentoo atop a small iceberg. Just great!! Plus, the camera battery poops out after about a ½ hour so THB doesn’t have many pics of these great icebergs to share.

THB is back after almost 2 full hours in a kayak plus another 20 minutes in the Zodiac to reach the ship (thinking of ways not to gloat too much about DB passing up the greatest kayak of the trip) only to find that DB has left the building. Turns out she went with the second batch of Zodiacs and see tons of great icebergs (way more than THB saw), gets up close and personal with a humpback whale (5 meters away!), seeing Chinstraps, and is ecstatic. Damn, THB turned down the chance to shift from a kayak to a Zodiac, fool that he is, because he was fairly well chilled and regretting the small cup of coffee at 7am, and thus misses the whale.

Everyone is thrilled!! The only ones who lost out were those that did neither kayaking nor Zodiac’ing.

The few pics from the morning:

Snow tracks

One set works for both outings

That's Tim in the front, not DB

Cape Petrels (?) and supposedly a seal in the middle

Note the blue shelf underwater

There's  a lone Gentoo on top

Later in the day, more snow accumulates 

The afternoon excursion is relatively brief: THB and DB are on the second to last Zodiac to leave the ship and on one of the first to return. The weather is brutal, we’ve seen Gentoos before and the vista of glaciers and mountains is blurry due to the impending weather. Good news: THB and DB finally use the poles we brought from E-ville, they work well in the deep snow pack.

Back to the ship.

Pics from Mickelsen Harbour:

Skua