Last day of landings

 Last day of landings 

We started the day with an early run to Half

Moon bay where we got to see both gentoo and chinstrap penguins. 

One could just stare at these guys for hours. 

This was an area heavily used by whalers.  This is the remains of a water ship which was used to haul fresh water out to the main vessel. 

After this, David got to go kayaking for a second time when we saw a number of seals and their pups. 

Once aboard after kayaking it was time to party!

Yesterdays lunch was surf and turf and Antarctica iced tea. Apparently that’s like Long Island iced tea with blue Curaçao in it so it’s the color of the sea. I also had lobster tail for dinner and perhaps that was enough lobster for a while.

 I think they did this as a distraction from the reality that the adventure was coming to a close and that we would once again have to cross the drake passage. 

We had a lecture about the life of a researcher in Antarctica. Very interesting but not the life for me. . The big research center is called Mcmurdo . It has three airports and no runways. The airplane has to be able to land on ice. They are approximately 200 scientists at a time and 1300 support staff. When they first come to Antarctica they are taken to survival camp.  They get a short lecture and then get left for 2 days to do it on their own.  They sleep in tents and snow caves  and learn how to cut ice blocks and other stuff to survive. 

It’s called happy camper school. 

In order not to contaminate Antarctica, whatever you bring in, you must take out. There is an outhouse, and they go in buckets. The waste freezes in the bucket and then they just take the frozen waste back on the plane with them when they leave The problem is the waste defrosts in about 45 minutes and the flight is an hour and a half!

So someone developed a propane fired outhouse - fondly called the “Rocket Toilet”. 

 . It turns the waste into an ash which is much easier to fly out on the plane.  You don’t want to camp downwind. But then the wind doesn’t cooperate.  They did have a propane fire in the outhouse while someone was using it. Apparently it was an Astronaut and the story made the cover of time magazine. “How I survived the Rocket Toilet”

This scientist we were listening was once in Antarctica on a project. Woke up to a gorgeous sky. The wind picked up a hour later blowing snow. By the third hour there were 40 mile a hour winds.  The storm didn’t let up and they were stuck in their tents for 17 days. He said, thank goodness he had two thick books to read.

Some of the best talks were called expedition diaries. That’s when one of the Explorer/scientists gave a talk of their personal experience. One man discussed when he was up in the Arctic in a boat. He and the crew were downstairs eating and there was a knock on the hatch.  He opened  up and there was a polar bear!  The bear stuck his head down but could t fit down the hatch. The polar bear, then took his head out and put his big paw in. They waited and then heard nothing and someone looked through a rear hatch.  There was a polar bear sitting in the captains seat where you steer the ship. Nothing to do but to wait downstairs until the polar bear decided to leave.

We are back in the Drake passage. It’s expected that the seas will be rougher than when we came. They’re expecting 18 foot waves. We are at 15 ft as we write. . My patch is working great. David hasn’t bothered taking anything and he seems fine.

As we entered the passage one last magical scene went past.