The
morning started with snow. But the snow showers did not affect our
first landing of the day. We were welcomed by the Ukrainian staff to
their Station Vernadsky. We spent our time in the main building. First
we were given a guided tour but then we had enough time to enjoy the famous bar. Several passengers tested the home-made
Vodka. There is a special “lady offer”. If you donate your bra to the
bar, you get a vodka drink for free. Unfortunately only one lady gave
her bra away. The station members were a little bit sad – perhaps.
We spend our afternoon on Peterman Island. There
was heavy cloud cover and most of the time we had continuous showers of
rain or sleet or snow. But there is no bad weather, there is only bad
clothing. We have been prepared very well for this weather with our
rubber boots, rain pants and our blue waterproof jackets. So we enjoyed
the landing even under these weather conditions. We spread like blue
penguins over the island to see the Adelie Penguins with their nearly
full grown chicks. We also saw Blue Eyed Shags and Gentoo penguins. The
Gentoo chicks are quite small for this time of the year and as a result
the Skuas were often attacking and eating the chicks. It is not nice to
see how often the Skuas were successful, but that’s nature and Skuas
have to eat too.
Most of us spent the evening relaxing in the
Panorama Lounge. All these experiences made us tired and we went to bed,
looking forward for another wonderful day.
