Bluff Island

Once again our destination has changed today in order to find a sheltered spot where all water based activities can be carried out. Instead of going to Yankee Harbour, we have sought refuge  behind Bluff Island, mainly to avoid the ocean swell.

It snowed lightly over night and this continued all day.

 I am not sure there is going to be a lot to see here, other than icebergs, birds and maybe a whale or two. We are scheduled to head out on the special operations boat at 10.15 am, at least it has a roof overhead and a screen at the front.

The snow hadn't eased by 10.15am and whilst only light, it was horizontal, so there was no avoiding it. We were fully dressed up in all of the layers, so at least were warm.

Carole collecting some snow as she seeks refuge under her parka

Wandering around a fairly large expanse of water with a few icebergs and Bluff Island for shelter from the wind, we were looking for any form of wildlife to justify going out in this weather. We were rewarded with a sighting of some Adelie penguins swimming quite close to our boat, but not for long.

Just as it all appeared a bit futile a large humpback whale was spotted and it hung around for a while providing us with some entertainment. We have seen very few whale breaches here, mostly they swim along feeding, and occasionally we get to see a tail when they deep dive.

Back on board we have to walk back through the hangar to get to the access stairway and I took the chance to get a photo of the impressive slipway that houses the special operations boats and probably the dive support boat.

Also I spotted the second submersible and asked the crew if I could take a photo. They were most obliging and let me through the barriers to get a good shot.

In keeping with Beatles naming, this one is named "Paul", obviously Ringo and George must be on Viking Polaris.

We were pretty pleased to get back to our room and shed our damp outer layer. Another great feature of this the drying closet, where your hang all of your wet gear, including lifejackets and boots, and hot air is circulated to dry it all.

After all the time we spent searching for whales, a large humpback came right up along our side of the ship, probably closer than we had achieved in the boats out searching. 

We also had a zodiac cruise booked for this afternoon at 2 pm, but cancelled it as we saw now benefit in going back out in this weather.

This is our final day in Antarctica and at around 5 pm we set course for Ushuaia. The conditions for crossing the Drake Passage look more challenging than our journey across, so it will be interesting to see how Viking Octantis handles it. 

In the last 24 hours the AIS has gone berserk with just about every cruise line that has an expedition vessel now appearing in the same vicinity as us. As we are leaving we are close to Silver Cloud, Ponant Le Boreal is here, Scenic Eclipse, Greg Mortimer, there are two Seaborne vessels and a number of other lesser known ones. There are also 4 krill fishing vessels, 2 from China and 2 from Norway. Also every zodiac has AIS so the map can look quite busy.

Silver Cloud off our starboard side

We have 5 hours motoring at 10 knots from the commencement of our trip before we clear the restricted wildlife zone and can increase our speed. The current plan is arrival at Ushuaia at 8 pm on Sunday 15th. We departed at 5pm on Friday 13th.