18/2/08
20:00
The Germans vanished on cue as
advertised. Gabriele, Paulo and I
went ashore to commune with the Gentoos, of which there are thousands. According to Jimmy Cornell this
anchorage, Port Circumcision, was named by a French explorer, after the
traditional day on which it was first sighted, 1 January 1909. The French expedition spent a long winter here with their ship
“Pourquoi Pas.” The initials
PP are carved into a rock a few meters off our port beam, and the Germans were
all dutifully ferried in to look at the piece of rock. The
Island
itself is called Peterman
Island.
After our outing I had a shower and a general
clean up while unbeknown to me Gabriele was out in the cold on the bow filming a
leopard seal who had dropped in for dinner. He caught a penguin and toyed with it
for nearly ten minutes before dining. The Brown Skuas, scavengers of the
South, appeared immediately and went for odd bits missed by the leopard seal. It
was extremely violent, all happening a few meters from the boat. After our
dinner there was another feeding frenzy.
19/2/08
8:00AM
We wake to 40 knots whistling through
the rigging. If the wind dies down
later we’ll move on to Vernadsky, the Ukraine Base in the
Argentine
Islands which
used to be the British Base Faraday. If not, well stay put another night and
move on tomorrow.
Another cruise ship has appeared and there
are a few intrepid red clad travellers ashore in the wind and the freezing
rain. The average age of
these groups is substantially past retirement age…not that I’m one to
talk.
I attach a few snaps.
Every modern yacht should have a trash
compactor. Here is
ours.
Brown Squas feeding
The boat moored
Inside the Refuge Hut
Gabriele Makes a
friend
