Paradise Bay on the Antarctic Continent

Today was a glorious day in Paradise Bay -- sunny, 35 F, no wind, and water as smooth as glass.  We did a 9:00 am landing at Brown Station, a small Argentine research station that is not open this season due to Covid. Here there was a small colony of Gentoo penguins, some of which are molting.  While molting, they cannot enter the water, as they are in the process of replacing ALL their feathers.

A few facts about Antarctica:
- the highest, driest, coldest, windiest and brightest of the 7 continents

- roughly the size of the US & Mexico combined

- 90-95% of its surface is covered by snow and ice that is more than 1 mile in thickness

- no country "owns" Antarctica - it is governed by the Antarctic Treaty of 1959

- there are no trees here now, but you can find red and green algae 

- expedition ships to Antarctica must follow policies set forth by IAATO, the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators; only 100 guests can land at a site at any one time, so we have rotations of zodiacs bringing guests to landing sites












Comments

  1. OkieGreenFebruary 11, 2022 at 7:06 AM

    Thank you, so much, for this blog. The pics have been wonderful. Joining the Octantis in Barbados in April. Enjoy this every morning.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WE ARE GOING TO ANTARCTICA!

 Viking is introducing their new Expedition Ships in 2022 and we have booked the 13-day Antarctic Explorer  cruise from Feb 3-15! We will fly from Dayton to Buenos Aires, then take a charter plane to Ushuaia, Argentina, where we will board the brand new Octantis.   The ship is a polar class 6, carries 378 guests, and has many of the same amenities as the beautiful Viking ocean ships. Rick and I have done one Viking river cruise (Romantic Danube) and were passengers on the 141-day inaugural Viking World Cruise in 2018.  We are so excited to explore our seventh continent.  The ship is equipped with zodiacs, RIBs and two 6-person submersibles which will be used to explore the Antarctic peninsula.  We will spend 7 days landing at various locations to view the snow-covered landscape, glaciers, penguins and other wildlife.   The average temperature on the Antarctic peninsula in February is 34 degrees.  Viking will provide each guest with a waterpro...
Read more

Postscript to Antarctica: a tour of Tierra del Fuego

Image
 After disembarking from the cruise ship at 9 am on Feb 15, we spent the day on a bus tour of Tierra del Fuego. (Our charter flight from Ushuaia to Miami was not scheduled to leave until 11:30 pm Feb 15, so we had a lot of time to fill/kill!) Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) is an archipelago at South America's southernmost tip and is home to the town of Ushuaia, where the Viking Octantis  is anchored. Tierra del Fuego is shared by Argentina and Chile, and is known for its dramatic landscape of mountains, glaciers, lakes and wind-sculpted trees.  We visited the Tierra del Fuego National Park, which features forests of beech trees, lakes, birds, and a visitor center that provided lunch.  We drove around the town of Ushuaia, which has a population of 70,000 and is very hilly.  Our last stop was dinner at a restaurant near the ski area Cerro Castor, which is open from mid-June to mid-October (Southern Hemisphere winter).
Read more