Wednesday 9 February 2011

Antarctica in snow


The morning started with snow. But the snow showers did not affect our first landing of the day. We were welcomed by the Ukrainian staff to their Station Vernadsky. We spent our time in the main building. First we were given a guided tour but then we had enough time to enjoy the famous bar. Several passengers tested the home-made Vodka. There is a special “lady offer”. If you donate your bra to the bar, you get a vodka drink for free. Unfortunately only one lady gave her bra away. The station members were a little bit sad – perhaps.
 
We spend our afternoon on Peterman Island. There was heavy cloud cover and most of the time we had continuous showers of rain or sleet or snow. But there is no bad weather, there is only bad clothing. We have been prepared very well for this weather with our rubber boots, rain pants and our blue waterproof jackets. So we enjoyed the landing even under these weather conditions. We spread like blue penguins over the island to see the Adelie Penguins with their nearly full grown chicks. We also saw Blue Eyed Shags and Gentoo penguins. The Gentoo chicks are quite small for this time of the year and as a result the Skuas were often attacking and eating the chicks. It is not nice to see how often the Skuas were successful, but that’s nature and Skuas have to eat too.
Most of us spent the evening relaxing in the Panorama Lounge. All these experiences made us tired and we went to bed, looking forward for another wonderful day.