Toni and Janie's Blog

18th posting on Jan. 22, 2014 ..... Back to the welcome page and listings for other links

Ships Captain woke us up early (6 :30) this am to tell us that because of huge amounts of pack ice, we would not be going all the way into Hope Bay as planned (this is a bummer because there is an Adelie penguin rookery in there with over 100,000 of them. Nuts. Sooo we got up and dressed & went from port to starboard (left to right) watching penguins diving for breakfast. (See pics of top of the ship). There was an expedition ship that passed us & they were still in the ice when we left---it was much smaller ship with pointy bow I guess better to cut through ice. (See pic). Fabulous light this am and many pics of small dots diving (they really are penguins).

Yesterday afternoon the researchers from Palmer station returned via their Zodiak boats (see pic). It was so cool listening to their stories and hearing about research projects down here. Not sure I'd want to spend much time down here in winter. Summer is enough (it snowed again yesterday afternoon).

Drama on the ship---smoke detected in the forward engine compartment and they will keep us posted. Yikes...I thought the alarm was a drill. More later. Update from bridge---no fire found but still some smoke. Later......

I said before, we know what day it is on the ship because they have it on the rugs. Happy Tues. We are now headed to who knows where...going through thick fog---at least I hope it's fog and not smoke. Update on fire--- source of smoke is on one of the bow thrusters. "They are dealing with it" whatever the _____ that means!

Ok. They just announced that the "fire is under control"---would have felt better if they would have used the word "OUT".

So we sailed north to King George III Island, saw the Ecuadorean & Brazilian research stations with their support ships close by. This was an area we hoped to see large # of whales (humpbacks) which we did thru binocs but so hard to get pics. I did get a little bit of video but still hard to see. Also saw some leopard seal on ice flows.

Onward! We are sailing due North to the Falkland Islands and more PENGUINS up close. Hard to believe we go home in one week from today. XO from the cold southern latitudes! J&T

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