Brown Bluff

Salamander
Wed 8 Nov 2017 00:09

Sunny, calm, a beautiful day. Hard to believe that this was our main landing on the Antarctic Peninsula. Caroline was so hot that a thermal layer was removed before hiking up a snowy swale to view a glacier. The real reason for doing this was the great bum slide down again (one passenger hiked up 3 times). As we were the first ship of the season, the pristine snowy slope was left with many a bum print that will probably remain until a melt or more snow next winter.

brown bluff

brown bluff

brown bluff

We really made our way through this to anchor off Brown Bluff

brown bluff

brown bluff

 the sea state was unbelievably smooth

brown bluff

Adelie penguin

The Adelies make rock nests. Some nests would not win any design awards and the Adelies are not above stealing rocks from another nest.

brown bluff

brown bluff

brown bluff

brown bluff

not a penguin

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Brown Bluff

brown bluff

brown bluff

 yet more penguins

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 Murray braking at the end of his bum slide

The warm calm weather came at a price. By the afternoon winds were 30-40 knots, top wind speed 77 knots (force 12). Once again the restaurant and lounge seemed a lot emptier. Snow, rain, strong winds and swells were to be around for a while.