15 February 2010; Palmer Station and Lemaire Channel.

During the night the wind picked up, while it was supposed to die off under the influence of the Antarctic continent but with the wind came and with it some more swell. That made me loose a knot of speed each hour and hence I had to put back the arrival time at Palmer Research Station to 1 pm instead of noon time. So at 1 pm we entered the bay by that time the wind had indeed died down,. The sun was coming out and we saw the Antarctic continent in front of us in all its white glory. In the early morning we had already seen some ice bergs floating in the distance and by 10 am we had the first penguins diving around the ship. Their movements while swimming are not unlike small dolphins when they skim over the waves before they dive again for food. At Palmer station, which is a USA research station, we pick up a few scientists who gave a talk onboard about what they exactly do there. Normally there is a whole group of them coming, as it gives them access to a good lunch, hair dresser, pedicures and a few other things that are not available at the station.

The schedule setup is such that they do a presentation for first sitting guests as soon as they come on board; then we do scenic cruising in Lemaire Channel and on the way back to Palmer Station there is a presentation for the main sitting guests. This time we had 16 of them coming onboard to enjoy a bit of R&R. At the same time we offloaded a whole list of food stuffs, that the station cook had requested a few days before. Garlic was especially high on the list. What they also wanted and what looked strange to me, was ice cream. Well that is like carrying coals to Newcastle. The whole continent is full of ice and they wanted some more but it was all duly delivered to the Zodiac’s.

The Zodiacs coming alongside. 16 people from Palmer station for a presentation, good food and….ice cream.

With all onboard we turned around and sailed in the direction of Lemaire Channel, Properly named after a Dutchman and thus all the more reason for us to go sightseeing there. It took us about an hour to get there, occasionally dodging a big iceberg. The navigating is done by the Officer of the Watch (OOW), while the ice pilot advises about how close you can sail by and what to expect when going around the corner.

Approaching the narrow part of Lemaire. with over 3000 ft. high peaks on either side.

The ice pilot cannot sail the ship himself, firstly because there is no pilot jurisdiction here and secondly he is on the bridge for as long as there is ice in the area and mentally you can not con a ship for hours on end. Thus it is done by the officers and when the maneuvering started, I took over and the OOW could take a bit of a rest. Today here there was very little ice and that helped us with getting to the narrow part of Lemaire nicely on time.

Some people did want to swim in Antarctic waters and so it was made official.

While we were going there, Thom the cruise director did his plunge with the penguins, so those who wanted could claim that they swam in Antarctic waters. Here we also reached the most southern point of our cruise 065o04 South. I could not go any further as the end of Lemaire was blocked off with ice.

The sun shone beautifully on the high peaks of the narrow strait and it was a wonderful sight. We swung around just off a penguin rookery so everybody could have a good look of penguins nesting on the rocks. Some of them quite high up. We were back at 1800 hrs. at Palmer Station to disembark our visitors again and to embark 4 scientists that go on leave. We will transport them to Buenos Aires. Catching a ride on a cruise ship is by far the easiest way to get out of the area, especially if you have a lot of luggage. We had some officer’s cabins available for them, so it was all possible.

By 1900, we entered the next part of our scenic cruising, Neumayer channel. This is a fairly narrow channel where the high mountains on either side are thickly covered in ice and snow and it all comes down all the way to the water line. With the sitting sun, the 1000 meter high peaks where bathed in gold and it was very imposing. After that we sailed through Gerlache strait which is a sort of Iceberg alley and by 11 pm. We were out in open waters. Here we will spend the night and then tomorrow at 05.30 we start all over again.

Our first view of Antarctica. Coming around the corner at Palmer Station.