We were
headed for our morning landing at Petermann Island. The Gentoo penguin chicks
there are already almost as big as their parents, and their fat bellies clearly
demonstrated that they have been doing very well this year. The cliff at the northern
edge of the colony is the place where the blue-eyed shags breed and their
chicks are also notoriously hungry. Their parents were industrious going back
and forth to the sea and on every return, greedy quarreling broke out between
the three to four siblings in each nest.
A view
point at the far end of Petermann Island further offered a splendid view of the
surroundings, with the FRAM in front of snow-covered mountains on one side and
a bay filled with icebergs of all shapes and shades of blue on the other side.
Humpback
whales accompanied us on our way to our afternoon landing site, the Ukrainian
research base Vernadsky. Still miraculously under blue skies we cruised through
the narrow channels in between the Argentine Islands up to the base, where we
were shown around the building by the resident researchers. The landing was
rounded off by a visit to historic Wordie House, the old and abandoned British
station building on the neighboring Winter Island. The hill behind Wordie House
offered a fantastic 360° panoramic view of the ice-filled Argentine Islands
archipelago, and even some breaching humpback whales!
