Direction: Peterman Island

The ship navigated through the night. We were close to the Lemair Channel and were heading for Peterman Island. <o:p></o:p>

Everybody was summoned to wake up at 6.30am to take pictures of our beautiful surroundings. It was worth it.

We made another zodiac excursion later today. I asked to be with another driver because I was too unwell the previous day. Luckily, I was on the zodiac driven by “Fire” (the paramedic), who was much more supple and softer in his driving. However, we had a lot of wind that day which left us all drenched! My 15 year old Gore-Tex jacket, offered by my Godmother, didn’t resist and water infiltrated itself. I also had the inside of one glove soaking wet. However, we all had fun and it was a wonderful experience. <o:p></o:p>

In the afternoon, we were to go hiking but the strength of the wind was close to the level of a hurricane (level 10 out of a scale of 12) and led to it being cancelled. The ship has to move to seek protection. The ship’s crew told us it was the second cancellation in 8 years. I must say that I was happy to not have to go out because my clothes weren’t dry. I asked one of the 2041 team members to lend me another jacket and I had to buy expensive mittens in the ship’s gift shop (which left me with USD$40 to get back home…).<o:p></o:p>

To occupy our afternoon, Susan Eaton, geologist, physicist, and other interesting scientific specialties and also a journalist, gave us a very interesting presentation. We got to see old pictures of Shackleton’s expedition in the early 20^th century compared to other photos taken during her previous expedition here in 2010 with scientists and artists. Very interesting. <o:p></o:p>

Another presentation was given by of of the ship’s crew, a marine biologist, on icebergs.<o:p></o:p>

Because of the bad weather, camping on the continent was impossible because there was danger for the zodiac drivers (empty zodiacs would just blow away).

Later in the afternoon the weather improved and it allowed us to do a short excursion to Peterman Island. It was our first acquaintance with penguins. Those we met were of the Gentoo specie. They are roughly 30 to 40cm high and are so cute. Of course, before we left the ship, we were given the strict instruction to not approach them less than 5 meters. If some of the penguins came towards us, we were not to walk away, but were not to stroke them either (pity).

I managed to film a handful swimming in the water and who were looking like they were having a silly half hour! <o:p></o:p>

I think the hardest part was to tell ourselves that we weren’t allowed to interfere with nature. If we saw a Skua bird trying to eat a penguin’s eyes, we weren’t allowed to stop it.