More penguins, more spectacular views and a very quick bath in the southern icy sea

Pléneau Island

Lemaire Channel, spectacular view

Well, it kind of had to happen. After a few days with a cold brewing where I had been on all  activities, gone camping outdoors etc, it came out in full bloom overnight.
The fact that one of my cabinmates moves the
temperature to the highest temperature all the time as well probably doesn't help either.

An early zodiac cruise around the icebergs at Pléneau Island was what I had to skip, but a few pills and a (maybe not so) healthy appetite for adventure was all I needed to be ready for our trip to Palmer Station. Before that I did get to see the Lemaire Channel with it's spectacular view from the boat, the channel had actually been froozen just a few days earlier, so that was another
nice bonus.

Palmer Station is an american research facility where there are room for 44 persons, usually full in the summerseason and about half during winter. They let on about 10 ships every season, so we were quite lucky to be one of the few choosen few. We took one of them with us on the way back, so that was probably the reason why we were choosen. We were however never told if he was a POW, a deserter or just a guy who was going home.


The facility in itself was partly selfmaintained, but they did of course bring supplies like food and diesel from the mainland.
It was interesting to hear from our guide, the onsite mechanic, that he himself couldn't phantom a life where you had to commute to the same workplace every day and then just get a few weeks off every year, when he now worked for 6 months and then got 6 months off. Personally I couldn't stand having 6 months off every year, usually the two weekend days are enough for me before I feel I need to get back to work and do something.

On Torgersen Island on the other side of the bay of Palmer Station there was an adelie penguin colony, these are smaller and a bit more  agressive than the chinstraps and gentoos we've seen a lot of earlier.
The chicks here was almost fully grown, or maybe not fully grown, but at least enough for the parents to leave them. The parents was clearly making them ready as they pushed them into clusters with the other chicks so they should understand that they should be dependent of each
other and not the parents any more.
The parents will most likely move to sea in a few days leaving the chicks to themselves, they will then wander around without any real clue to what they should be doing, but after a while when they get too hungry they will move to the water. This is usually the same time as the seals will move to the shores to pick off the easiest prays who hasn't understood how this works yet.
In some ways I'm glad I don't get to see that.

Polar Plunge, just do it

Back on the boat we were informed that they would give us the opportunity to do the "polar plunge" later that day. In short this is were you jump off the boat into the freezing water and get back up as fast as you can, mostly to be able to brag that you've done it. For me it was a bad day they'd picked for it as my fever was still lurking, so I did it anyway and have absolutely no regrets that I did it. Woke up the next morning without a voice, but it loosened up untill midday - worth it!


After the plunge there was yet another amazing dinner, the food on the boat was maybe one of the biggest positive surprises, being at sea for 1,5 weeks without any fresh supplies and creating 5-stars dinners day after day is highly impressive. I will however not continue the 5000kcal-a-day diet when I get home.
Desert being topped this day with a chocolate buffet.



At night we were visited by some humpback wahles moving in very close to the ship, one of my fellow travellers took the short movie shown below. Probably better to watch the short clip than whatever I can write about it.

Awesome Adélie Penguin not really ready to swap places with his/her mate after a few days of feeding

Adélie Penguins