After breakfast we prepared for our first landing of the day
at an Argentinean station called Almirante Brown. By stepping on the rocks at
the landing site we officially touched down on continental Antarctica. After
getting over the excitement of the continental landing, some of us enjoyed
watching the resident Gentoo Penguins go about their daily business in the
snow. They are sitting on eggs right now. Others climbed the steep, snow-covered
hill behind the station and had a marvelous time sliding back down. Today we
broke the record and Philip, one of our South African passengers, went up and
down 9 times!
The snow fell unabated through lunch, then eased off for our second landing at Cuverville Island, the largest Gentoo Penguin colony in Antarctica. But this is not the only accolade we can bestow upon this place. It is situated in one of the most beautiful places in the world, with the towering, ice-covered peaks of Rongé Island on one side and the Antarctic continent on the other. And in the sea around the island was today one of the best and diverse collections of small and medium-sized icebergs ever to have existed- your faithful blogger is sure of that! Some of us even had the opportunity to climb amongst the bergy-bits. We had time to get to know the Cuvercille Gentoos today, and witnessed several skuas attempting to steal a penguin egg for dinner (if you are on the side of the penguin here, remember that skuas have to eat too).
