Hiking on Cuverville Island

We were all up early this morning. Today’s planning was a small excursion on Cuverville Island and its beach.<o:p></o:p>

On the beach, we had small discussion workshops as wewere divided into small groups. It was very interesting as the goal was to have the participants who don’t talk much on the ship to express their opinions.

Now, time for paparazzi shooting! A colony of penguins was on the beach, as well as a fur seal that was resting and wasn’t bothered by our presence. Penguins are only hunted by leopard seals and this only in water. On the beach were a few whale bones.

Back on the ship, we had lunch and got ready for the afternoon outdoor trip on Cuverville Island where we had our first hike with ropes on Antarctica.<o:p></o:p>

On our way they by zodiac, I witness a very disagreeable scene for me: a leopard seal had just caught a Gentoo penguin and was throwing it all over the place to kill it. It was awful. All of my zodiac passengers, but me, were fascinated. Theo, our young French student, had a camera that can go under water and so managed to film a part of the scene under water… lovely… I wasn’t at ease either because the scene was taking place on one side of the zodiac and as the spectators wanted to look, we were all on one side of the zodiac (I was turning my back to the show), and I was afraid the zodiac would tip over. Happily, all went well (except for the poor bird).<o:p></o:p>

We saw our teams made in Ushuaia changed for this hike. I must adapt to my new team members’ personality. Everything goes well. Our team leader, Ben, is aware of my physical limits and he is very caring. He even lent me his walking sticks that became actually very useful for the snowed areas.

I am very happy because I’m hanging in even better than in Ushuaia. I am even getting to like mountain hikes. As soon as I regain financial stability (remember that I had to take out a loan for this trip), I may pursue mountain hiking.<o:p></o:p>

Everything went well and we all returned safely to the ship. Tonight was going to be the first group’s camping night (my roommate Audrey was part of the 1^st team). They thus had to have dinner before those staying onboard the ship for the night (I was part of the second camping night). Those staying would have the opportunity to speak with Robert. <o:p></o:p>

I didn’t sleep very well that night. Probably because I knew my turn was the following night, weather permitting.