In the afternoon, we landed at Telefon Bay, named for a salvage vessel that moored in the bay in 1909 awaiting repairs. This is the site of the crater of the most recent volcanic eruption in 1969. It was more ash-covered ice. You could kick through the ash and see the ice, but it was amazing how much ash there was.
There were some muddy streams to contend with.
Looking ahead to where we were going.
Looking back to where we’d come from.
Allen talking to Yvonne, the geologist. I have a separate post on the Quark team coming soon.
Looks like a shark’s tooth.
Hugo the video guy again.
Still pretty foggy.
So this was our last landing. Our last time to step foot on Antarctica. Once we went back on the zodiac to the ship, we would be heading back across the Drake for South America, with this amazing experience behind us. I wasn’t ready for it to be over; I don’t think anyone was.
But as we approached the spot on the beach where the zodiacs had landed…TWO CHINSTRAP PENGUINS SWAM UP AND HOPPED ONTO THE BEACH!
And these were two of the most curious penguins we’d encountered yet. The guides asked us to keep to one side, not to circle around (within the allowed 15 feet) on all sides, but to leave one side completely open. The penguins kept moving closer to us, walking in amongst us. They were watching us as much as we were watching them.
The last zodiac was ready for us, but it was so hard to decide to say goodbye to these curious guys. These were probably the two most photographed penguins on our trip. I was thrilled to get to see chinstraps after all.
This was the most perfect ending to our last landing. And as we finally loaded up into the zodiac and started to pull away from the beach, the penguins watched us leave, and then hopped into the water and swam off.
That night after dinner there was a charity auction. I’ll say a little about that in a separate post, and then it’s back across the Drake.