Tales from my travels
Knowing that I needed to be ready to be picked up just after 11am I got myself out of the house at about 7.30 on Sunday and set off for a walk down to the beach and then across to the coast on the other side of the island and back up to the settlement. …
Despite my plans to be up for sunrise I ended up falling back to sleep and having a rather late start. When I finally managed to get myself moving I headed over in the direction of the rockhopper colony, just a 15 minute walk from the settlement. On the way, though, I was distracted by…
So far my island hopping has taken me northwest, but this week’s visit to Bleaker Island has me travelling southwards for the first time. The flight is only 25 minutes but we took a small detour, first dropping off some passengers on Sea Lion Island before heading back to Bleaker. We had some lovely views…
My last day on Pebble and my flight was due to go at around midday so I stayed fairly close to the settlement. I went out with a couple other guests and was dropped at Elephant Beach so that I could walk back via the ponds and see the birds there. It was a rather…
I spent all of Saturday on a tour down to the west end of the island. Pebble has a beautiful coastline with sandy, rocky and pebbled beaches and I was lucky to have a mainly sunny day to enjoy them. Unfortunately whilst I was happily tramping around the rocks the sole of one of my…
Alas, the weather is not in our favour, and we’ve had to start heading back northwards a day earlier than planned. We moved overnight to Charlotte’s Bay, where we went out on our last zodiac cruise, taking in the reflections of the mountains and a group of crabeater seals hauled out on the ice. Unfortunately…
Today we hit the southern most point of our journey, alas, that means that from now on we’ll be heading slowly but surely homewards. We set off from our anchorage at Cuverville in the middle of the night, and in the morning approached Port Lockroy, a sight of historic interest, and home to what I…
What a magical day. I thought yesterday that my cabin-mate and I had set the record for the swiftest wake up ever, but at 6:15 this morning, when we were told that there were orcas off the bow, we were even faster. In freezing temperatures, with all my warm gear downstairs in the mudroom, I…
Never have you seen two people leap out of bed so quickly as my cabin mate and I, when the expedition leader announced two minutes after the wake up call that there were minke whales off the bow. Niceties such as showering went out the window, as I quickly threw on my clothes and headed…
We woke up this morning to find ourselves enveloped in fog. Out on deck, the fog horn sounded every few minutes, adding to the eerie feeling. Despite having to slow a little, we were still able to continue our good progress, and just after lunch we arrived at our first destination, the South Shetland Islands….