Second landing on the 2nd of January

03-01-2012 10:00

Coming back from two fabulous walks on Devil Island, we depart for our second landing of the day at Brown Bluff, which lies on the Antarctic Peninsula. After some very exciting close encounters of the ice kind, our anchor was put down around 5 o’clock. To enjoy the most of our next landing, dinner was served an hour earlier and soon after 7 o’clock, blacky and grey were heading out to the main land.

Finally main land! Some people really got excited about stepping on the real Antarctica, but to me it felt like a "normal", good as usual landing. Landings are always a bit of a hassle, because you are never quite sure if you are wearing the right gear or taking the right equipment (did you get your camera, sunglasses, gloves?). Occasionally I tend to forget one or two of those items, so I usually end up running up and down the stairs to my cabin to fetch everything, until I finally end up in the zodiac probably without my hat or head.

Of course our guides tell us exactly what we are going to expect, wet landing, rough landing, short walk, nice flat walk, wear your wet gear, wear boots, take your hiking shoes with you...but still you’re never 100% sure. On our first walks I ended up wearing so many layers that I almost suffocated on our ways over the hills. So even though they say that wearing different layers is the best thing to do, you still have to take off those layers and carry them with you, which can be a bit of a pain, when you stumble around on the not so flat beach or climbing the not so flat hills.

Walking along the beach there were 100s of penguins. Somehow you never seem to get enough of those little funny guys and even though your fingers are freezing off, you take picture after picture and you sit and observe all their funny habits and listen to all the peculiar noises they make. Wildlife stays fascinating even after so many landings.

After Mike’s short but very interesting geological talk, we took another way down. This way was much more fun as we slided down on our feet, a couple of us on our bums and this same guy was laughing his head off all the way down. That was so funny.

At the end of our walk, some are so excited about getting on the glacier, that they decide to cuddle and roll in the snow (don’t worry, they are married), while others are so overheated, that they decide to take a dive in the not so very cold sea, while still others are just too happy to get in one of the zodiacs and return to our ship.

I got back on our ship and spent the rest of the evening in the lounge drinking hot chocolate (yes! Thank you Dan) warming up my feet and winning all the games we played. Ok, that might have been a small exaggeration.

Just another wonderful day on the Europa. 

Thankfully there are still many to go.

Hi to everybody I know!

Anitra Xx