BBQ in the Antarctic

24th January 2016
I'm reading a book about Scott And Amundsen (what else would you read in the Antarctic), when last night I came across this passage. "On January 26th [1898] Amundsen landed on an island called Two Hummocks to try his skies". We were next to that island two days ago when we visited Hydrurga Rocks.
This morning we went on a zodiac cruise around the Mechior Islands. The trip took use around the small islands and icebergs. There was Fur, Weddell and Crabeater Seals and for once only a handful of penguins (Gentoo and Chinstrap). I think I have missed my chance to see Adelie Penguins, we should have seen them at Vernadsky but we missed that due to the ice. Apparently there was one on Cuverville Island but I missed it. Part of the Mechior opens out to the Drake Passage so it can get a bit lumpy here, but it seems OK today.
For lunch today we had BBQ beef, chicken and Argentinian sausage. The food was cooked on a large BBQ fixed to the deck of the ship.
This afternoon we had our second landing on the Continent itself. This was at Neko Harbor, which is at the head of Andvord Bay, it has stunning views of mountains and glaciers. Near to Neko we saw some Humpback whale's and a Minke whale. They were resting so we could only see a small part of their body, one however did do a deep dive which meant it's tale came out of the water as it went down.
On land there was a small Gentoo colony with some quite big chicks and a couple of Weddell Seals out of the water resting.
We were able to take a short hike up the side of the glacier, up to about 150m above sea level, which gave fantastic views of the glacier and back along the inlet.
When we are not doing a landing you can go out on the decks to take photos, visit the bridge, but sometimes it's nice to put the camera away and just sit in the lounge drinking tea and watch Antarctica pass by. You may see a whale blow, seals on an ice floe or penguins porpoising.
It always brings a smile to my face if I look out of the cabin window and see penguins porpoising by.
Tomorrow is our last day of activities with two planned landings and then it will be time to take on the Drake once more as we head back to the city of Ushuaia.