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Day 3961, 21 Jan ‘23, Port Charcot, Booth Island Landing, Lemaire, Paradise Harbour Reflections
Rothera, Antarctica
Port Charcot (Booth Island) (-65.0800000, -63.9999999)
Our avowed target today was Port Charcot, on the north side of Booth Island at 65 degrees 04 S and 64 degrees 00 West. We are to expect a large gentoo penguin colony in Francais Cove which is also an iceberg graveyard. This was the overwintering site of the French Antarctic expedition in 1903 to 1905 lead by Jean Baptiste Charcot - Francais was the name of their ship.
WOW! So Booth Island this morning was viciously cold and windy - so much so that they were having to swap the landing crew out because it was sooooo cold. Some people were arriving, getting off the boat, taking 10 steps ashore and turning around and getting on the boat again - back to our cosy ship. We are made of sterner stuff and captured stunning penguin photos. It was cold enough for the camera battery to drain (first time on a landing) and too wet to change it out. It was a competition between the snow, hail, rain and wind as to which was making it colder. For the very first time we both could have done with an extra layer.
The afternoon was superb - The ship proceeded through the Lemaire channel with Booth Island to the left of us and the mainland of Antarctica to the right. At the end of the channel there were (apparently) two huge mountain peaks and these are now referred to officially as Una's Peaks - and colloquially as Una's t***. Amazing what useful info the evening briefing comes up with. Una Spivey was the Secretary of the Falkland Island Dependency Survey in the 1950s and the last woman that the men saw for a couple of years - and apparently was well endowed. The tallest is 747 m tall. We stayed up on deck for most of the channel and there were a great many majestic and awe inspiring peaks - we were spoiled for choice. And COLD! We were well into Witch's t*** territory in the temperature department - the wind was howling - strong enough to almost wrest my iPhone from my hands but worth it for the photos. When we finally retreated indoors to warm up it seemed no time at all until we reached Paradise Habour with its stupendous reflections in the late afternoon.
The ship came to a full stop so we could really enjoy this astonishing sight and honestly, it seemed a shame we couldn't just grab a kayak and paddle off (not really an impulse activity in Antarctica however, but still…) We passed by Brown Station (one of Argentina's) and had a relaxing dinner in Fredheim - we are both getting our fill of steaks and grilled salmon. After returning to the cabin we finished watching the modern version of IT and then a slow Denzel Washington movie. We were suffering chronic Scenery Overload Syndrome by then - SOS. The only cure possible was big sleep and taking it easy tomorrow morning as our landing wasn't scheduled to go out until 11 am.
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