Our Travel Stories

The day started foggy, but we set off in Zodiacs anyway. Plan was zodiac cruising and visit to Wordie House. Wordie House is the first base where women overwintered in Antartica for the first time.

What a perfect setting for the wildlife drama that unfolded. Foggy conditions with poor visibility, a stalking predator(s) (leopard seals) going hunting for the cute gentoo penguins, who in spite of being the fastest penguins still get caught by leopard seals. All other scavengers joining in the spectacle and to feast. You wish that the penguin would escape, but life doesn’t work that way.

We also had the leopard seal attempt to bite into zodiac and did puncture one of them. So glad that these are built with multiple chambers and are virtually indestructible.

Wordie house itself was the first base that actually looked comfortable with indoor toilet and lighting.

We also saw interesting moss as well as pink and green snow.

With all the drama all around us, it is easy to miss the other interesting things nature has to show you. There was lot of moss and colored snow around.

But the day was not over and we headed to Port Charcot to get closer to the gentoos as this place has one of the large gentoo colonies.

I really enjoyed this outing as we got so close to the penguins. The gentoos are not at all scared of us and watch us just as curiously as we watch them. They are also very funny with their antics.

Unfortunately with so many gentoos, there were also leopard seals around. Everyone seemed very fascinated by the whole penguin hunting drama. It literally goes on for 20-25 minutes as the seal almost seems to be playing with poor penguin by letting it go and catching it again.

I was glad when most folks in my zodiac decided they had enough and we went searching for better sights.

After these two outings, we had ship cruise through the Lemaire channel which is full of icebergs. It was getting foggy and it looked all very mysterious.