Another early start – as the ship's meteorologist put it, this morning's weather was very Antarcticy: grey, well below freezing, windy, horizontal snow. Landing at Damory Point, next to a well-kept British refuge hut (and a rubbish Argentinian one), a Gentoo penguin colony had read the script and obediently did penguiny things for the photographic benefit of sundry blue-parka-clad folk. I had a brief crisis of conscience regarding the morals of recording penguins in the act of making more penguins, and sort of mumbled a rather pathetic "don't mind me" in a vaguely British way. They didn't raise any obvious objection.
Back to the ship for lunch, while we pootled 30 miles around the corner to a completely different climatic zone: an excursion to Palmer Station (a permanently-manned/womaned US research base) took place on a flat calm sea with nary a cloud in the sky. Palmer is regarded as the Bahamas of the US Antarctic posting, as it isn't McMurdo (huge and cold) or South Pole (very very very cold.) The staff seemed suitably pleased with their lot, and very welcoming: they're only allowed 12 ship-visits per year, so they were pleased to see us (especially as many dollars were spent in their suspiciously well-stocked gift shop...)
From Palmer we nipped across the bay to an Adelie penguin colony at Torgersen Island. The now-familiar monochrome tomfoolery was enlivened by the presence of several HUGE elephant seals, slobbing out on the snow waiting for a tourist to mistake them for a rock. Sadly for YouTube, that didn't happen, but apparently when it does it can get messy.
Today's photo count: 924. Most of which are identical images of not-quite-in-focus (or not-quite-in-shot) penguins (plus three perfectly-in-focus shots of my own feet, suggesting that I need thinner gloves...)
Back on the ship, we were joined by the crew of Palmer Station for a talk by Neil Armstrong (he compared the voyages of Cook and Apollo, paying tribute to the Brits who explored without a clear destination.) I had a brief chat with Neil after his talk, then went on deck to photograph the sunset. It's 11pm: in the northwestern sky, bands of gold, mauve and red cloud; to the northeast, a thin crescent moon. Oo-er...
