Friday, January 5th 2018

Day 4 of G Adventures – Antarctica Classic – Booking code: XVCASX

The program for the day and the weather forecasts.

The weather and drift ice forecasts from Norwegian Meterological Institute are super fine:

Today at 6:00 am we crossed political border and are now in Antarctica. Before noon we have a lot of Zodiac (rubberboat) briefing, expedition stuff cleaning (they vacuum all your clothes, bags, cameras, shoes to avoid seed and soil transfers into Antarctica).

At breakfast first whales are sighted.

The first icebergs approach, too.

After everybody stormed out to take some pictures, we had some more kayak briefing in the ships library.

After lunch we dress up and get ready for kayaking. Unfortunately drift ice around the vessel prevents us from kayaking. So we undress again, change to land gear and go out with the zodiacs to Kinnes Cove instead. There we see the first penguins climbing up a hill and sliding down.

First leopard seal:

This one can even fly:

After coming back to the G Expedition and having dinner, we get a briefing from our expedition leader, Jonathan R Green (John) with the dark voice, for tomorrow.

We will go from Kinnes Cove, which is on an island in front of Antarctica to Cuverville, where we will be on mainland. Then we will proceed through the Errera Channel to paradise harbour. If possible we will kayak there. The alternative to kayaking is to visit the argentine antarctic Almirante Brown base.

Until now we were super lucky. We one a half day on the Drakes passage and arrived therefore earlier at the Antarctic peninsula. John says forecast is still fine, so we will try to take every opportunity to get off board, best two times daily and go as far south as possible.

After the briefing we get a camping introduction. This is, more or less and equipment introduction. Every two get a tent we have to build up by our own. Then we get a (very thin) insulation matt and a polar sleeping bag. We go down to storage to Deck 2 and get a tent-building lesson.

After some qwirkling in the ships bar we go to sleep early. We are really tired.

The map of todays cruise: