Day 3 in Antarctica, and yes we do the Polar Plunge!

It's Saturday, January 4, and we have another beautiful day.  We have been so lucky with the weather so far.  And today we have sunshine and blue skies and the landscape becomes even more beautiful!

 And the sea is calm.  It's not really cold; temperature seems to stay a constant 37 degrees F.

We were joined this morning by the staff from Port Lockroy, a British Antarctic Survey Station.  They gave us a brief presentation on the importance of Port Lockroy and the restoration work they are doing.

From the ship we can see the Port  on the right side of the photo below.

We then prepared to enter the zodiacs.  Each time we leave the ship and re-enter we go through a cleaning of our boots and walking sticks.  It's important to not cross contaminate any bacteria, etc. during our various landings.

As we leave the ship, we walk through a disinfectant solution.  Upon returning we do the same, but first our boots our hosed down with a power washer.

We ride the zodiacs in to the port.

Upon arrival we are welcomed by the staff.

This base is great for viewing wildlife up close.  There are many Gentoo penguins and their fuzzy chicks of all stages.

Some eggs - but watch out that bird is looking to steal it!

and some chicks 3-4 days old

  to 2 weeks old.

This base was established in 1944 by the British to reassert their territorial claim to the peninsula to provide weather reports.

It is now designated as an Historical Site and Monument under the Antarctic Treaty.
There is a small museum, a shop for buying souvenirs, and a post office.  We always like to send our grandson a postcard on our travels.  This time he will get one from possibly one of the most remote places on earth!

On our way back to the ship, we took a little detour in the bay behind the base where whalers used to cut the skin and fat from the whales during the whaling era.

We passed by Antarctic Cormorants and their chicks.

 There seemed to be an entire whale skeleton scattered on the shore,

 lying right near a sleeping Weddell Seal.

And Terry finally caught a penguin leaping into the water for a photo.  It's hard to get on our cameras...they are so quick.

Before we leave this bay, our Trip Leader took advantage of the beautiful day and scenery for a group photo.

Marta photo

With everyone back on board, off we went to cross the Neumayer Channel on our way to our next activity:  The Polar Plunge!!\

By the time we reached Neko Harbor, the sunshine had disappeared.  It is here that we will do the Polar Plunge.

But first we hike up the steep slope for a viewpoint.  We are on our "human highway"; the penguins are climbing also on their "penguin highway".

 I think the real purpose of this hike was to get our heart pumping so we would be good and warm before the plunge...

but really, it was to the viewpoint of the actively calving glacier and the bay.  It was hard to actually see the calving, but we definitely heard the cracking thunder of several huge chunks of glacier ice falling to the sea.

On our way down the hillside, we were delayed several minutes as one confused penguin was coming up on our human highway.  We stopped to yield and waited until he finally moved over....

to the penguin highway.

Here's a video Terry took of penguins on the highway we crossed on the hike.

Back down on the beach it was now time to do the Polar Plunge!  Those of us courageous(or...?) enough to do this wore swimsuits under our warm clothes so all we had to do was strip down to get ready.

We had 8 people from our group anxious to get this over with.  The plan was we would link arms and run into the water together.

Off we go.  We had to watch out for the floating ice!

 Still going...

 Then it's time to squat down and dunk ourselves up to the neck.

 And rise up triumphantly...that was hard as by now we could not feel our legs.

 And then run out as fast as we could make our legs move.

 The water was about 34 degrees F.

 Surprisingly, when we were out of the water, we did not feel cold at all.  The air temperature was about 37 degrees.  We felt exhilarated!

As soon as we donned our parkas, we boarded the waiting zodiac to take us back to the ship.

 It seemed fitting that Neko Harbor was the place chosen for the Polar Plunge.  Lynn Cox, the famous cold water swimmer had her very own polar plunge here in the early 2000's.  Cox was in the water for 25 minutes, swimming 1.22 miles.  Our "Antarctic baptism" was less than 30 seconds, maybe even 20!!

Here's a video as we returned to the ship from the beach.

All warmed up and as we were sitting down for dinner, there was a call from the bridge:  "Orcas starboard (right side of the ship)!  The captain turned the ship around and within 2 minutes everyone was outside to watch the pod of Orcas for about 20 minutes.

Photo by Dennis in our group

What an absolute perfect way to finish the day!

Tomorrow is our last day in the Antarctic as we start heading north.  We will go inside the caldera of a volcano!

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