Feb 19th Steve's 60th Birthday !!!

Feb 19th 2017  Steve's 60th Antarctic Birthday Dream

Steve’s 60^th Birthday dawned clear & bright and he opened his eyes to a birthday banner & balloons along with a cartoon card of him in Antarctica. 
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He was about to have his birthday wish of standing on the ice in Antarctica on his 60th although he would prefer 40.

Today, we set sail to Dorian Bay. Going back down the Lemaire Channel with a higher cloud base, we were now able to see the stunning beauty of this navigation passage only discovered in the last 100 years.  

The air is thin here so sun block has to be worn despite the thick cloud and sometimes snow. Steve learnt this early as he sported a red nose before even getting here.

At Lemaire Bay, we were first on the Zodiacs for driving round the icebergs, seeing the penguins, sea lions and of course the whales.  

Strange and mesmerising ice sculptures are everwhere.
The Turquoise once are particularly stunning.

The Crab eater seal and a fur seal share a park bench for a snooze.  Temperature is minus 4.

There is a team of scientists on board studying the travel movements of hump back whales and they had been out with us on the Zodiacs and stuck a radio transmitter on a hump back whale. Fortunately this one hadn’t travelled very far so we were able to see it.

Back to the ship after getting close-up and personal to some stunningly beautiful icebergs of many colours and textures, we were back on the boat to re-sterilise, feed and drink before we set out again 2 hours later.

The last stop of the day was to Danco Island, home to many thousands of Gentoo penguins all of which seemed to want to have their picture taken.

In the Antarctic, man has not been a threat and so most animals and mammals do not fear us.  We had never been to a penguin colony before but the smell was a memorable as the sight.

After a 3 mile hike across the snow and Ice, another terabyte of pictures, we ended up at another deserted dwelling, a “refugio”, a safe place to stay built by the Argentines in the 50s for use if the weather turned.  

This place was once again, breathtakingly beautiful but extremely cold and tonight, almost half the entire ship would return to “sleep on the ice” in a bivvy bag, sleeping bag and thermal mat only (no tent) for a night in the open.  No way on gods earth were we going to do that on Steve’s 60^th birthday ! We opted instead for the relative calm of the bar with some of our new found acquaintances.

Janette had sorted Steve’s birthday out with the crew, so dinner started with champagne for our little group of 6 , Mick and "Ang" from Australia and Val and Nick from Nottingham, and the ship had made him a cake which was presented by a little Asian crew member in a Penguin suit.  

The cake was improved immeasurably by the addition of the icing penguins which Janette had brought from the birthday cake Danielle, Steve’s daughter, had made for his birthday cake before we left.

Val & Nick headed off to sleep on the shore (mad …completely mad) and we sent them flashlight messages from the ship moored offshore 2 miles.

As the level of activity and effort is very high, everybody is completely knackered by 9.30pm although tonight, we manged 10.00 remarkably. 

Thanks to all for cards & presents. The photography gear has been getting maximum use and we look forward to inviting you round when we get back to view our 10,000 slide show (only joking...honest)

All in all a pretty unforgettable 60th Birthday !!

OK...i'm off

Hope the ship doesn't go without us !