Another Day in Paradise

Today we went to Paradise Bay. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was unbelievable. It's no surprise that they called this place paradise. We took a zodiac cruise around the bay and got up close to a colony of blue eyed shags. The weather was so calm and clear that the surface of the water was like a mirror and reflected the mountains around it.

Half way through the zodiac cruise our guide Shelley noticed another craft on the other side of the bay that was apparently in trouble. As we got close we could see it was full of crew members. They said they had taken a zodiac out for a little sight seeing of their own and had run out of petrol.  However, when we drew up along side we discovered that it was all a brilliant surprise. The crew members in the "stranded" zodiac were all the restaurant staff - and they had brought us champagne and snacks. I had a mimosa.

We left Paradise Bay at lunchtime. The weather was so beautiful that Denise and I decided this was the day to try out the hot tubs.

The afternoon was a bit of a departure from our usual shore excursions that focus on wildlife and scenery.  We visited Port Lockroy, on Goudier Island. Port Lockroy is a historic site and operates as a museum, post office and gift shop.  The original UK base here was opened during WWII. It was abandoned in the 60s. At the time there were no penguins on Goudier Island, but apparently at some point some penguins came along and thought "look at all these nice abandoned buildings" and moved in.  In 1994 a decision was made to clean up abandoned UK bases in the Antarctic, and Port Lockroy was restored and re-opened in its current form. The base is "manned" (currently by 4 women) in the Summer months only.  It has no fresh water supply and the staff rely on the visiting cruise ships for their water.  Apparently the staff really like Silver Explorer as it is the only Antarctic cruise ship that has baths as well as showers.  The women come on-board to take baths/showers.  The cruise ships also deliver supplies to the gift shop and take away the mail (dropping it off at Stanley in the Falklands).  From the Falklands the mail is all sent to the UK, and from there to the rest of the world, so delivery can take some time.  That said, this is the only place in the Antarctic that we could possibly send a post card from, so Denise and I sent 28 between us.  I also did all my present buying for the trip in the gift shop. The proceeds from the gift shop go to the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, which maintains the Port Lockroy museum and other UK heritage sites in the Antarctic.

Port Lockroy was totally overrun with penguins. The usual rule of staying 15 ft away from them was a non-starter, as they were literally everywhere, including all over the path up to the museum/gift shop building. It was quite warm today (maybe 2-3 degrees) and the penguins were all too hot. When this happens they lie down on the stone to try and lose some of their body heat.

They are not dead. Their just "resting"

This evening we had a special asado dinner, followed by the crew talent show up in the Panorama lounge. The first performer was good, the second was reasonably good, but after that I could tell that the quality was going downhill and decided to give the rest a miss and go to bed, since we have another early landing tomorrow.