Today we got to set foot on Antarctica! So this may be one of the best days of my life! Things started off a bit slowly– we had to skip plan A due to 28 knot winds. When you wake up to the intercom saying, ” Good morning, good morning. The wind is currently 28 knots and there is a significant amount of ice. Weather conditions are not great. All activities are postponed until further notice,” you get a sinking feeling in your gut and really wonder why you should even get out of bed for breakfast in 15 minutes. But sometimes things have a way of improving by just moving on to Plan B.

We just motored on down the coast to another harbor and delayed our day. We started with a zodiac cruise, and a whale sighting! I don’t know if I got any pictures of the whale or not, but I sure did try. We cruised around in our zodiac for an hour or so, snapping pictures like crazy. Then it was time to head back to the ship for lunch. We always had regularly scheduled meals.

Then after lunch we had a short zodiac cruise and we got to go on land at Base Brown, an old Argentenian research station. We weren’t allowed to go in any of the buildings, but who wants to go in buildings when there are penguins to photograph and mountains to climb?

They set up trail markers so that we all keep to the same path and for safety so you don’t get too close to the edge. It can be tough to navigate the snow. It isn’t solid–it’s sort of icy yet full of air pockets. Sometimes you put your foot down and it just keeps going and going. There were several times I went nearly knee deep in the snow. It’s very important to try and fill in the holes because a knee deep whole could be a deathtrap for a tiny penguin. I wish I had thought to get a picture of one of those holes.

Being so close to the penguins was AH-MAZING. They were all Gentoo penguins this time. They just waddle right past you on their way to sea or back to their nests. They are so funny to watch because for birds that live in Antarctica in snow and ice they actually aren’t very good at walking on snow and ice. They just walk along a few steps, then they fall on their bellies. Sometimes they will just scoot along on their bellies, and sometimes they will stand back up and try to walk again. Watching penguins fall makes thetwinsontour feel much better about their abilities on ice and snow. It’s like the penguin is the spirit animal of thetwinsontour. Maybe we were penguins in a former life.

Penguins travel on penguin highways when on land. Basically that means they all take pretty much the same route and wear a path in the snow. Just like I used to have to shovel a path in the snow for my Lucy Baby when her arthritis got too bad. The guides tell you not to stand in the penguin highways so that the penguins can get through, but it’s so hard to remember anything when you are in the presence of penguins.

I don’t think I can say this enough: I LOVE PENGUINS!

So, on to other subjects. If your activity is cancelled, like our camping was last night you basically miss your chance (boo). They just move on to the next list of people. For some reason they think it is better to be on a cancelled list, than to never be on a list at all. It makes no sense whatsoever to thetwinsontour, but we still had a tiny glimmer of camping hope. They didn’t have a full set of people scheduled for camping tonight so they drew names so that they could take a full group of 30 people camping. Unfortunately, just like thetwinsontour didn’t win the $1 billion Dollar Mega Millions lottery, we also didn’t win a spot in tonight’s camping activity. We are getting used to disappointment.

The campers only got to stay out for a few hours because the weather took a turn for the worse and they had to come back to the ship around midnight. So even had I won a camping spot, I may not have had time to pee in a Gatorade bottle.

But on the bright side, PENGUINS!

Love,

thetwinsontour