Today we were awake on and off through the night as I currently have a cough - but my frequent peering a through the blackout curtains suggested it never really went dark albeit I did miss the 0330 sunrise which must have been one of my sleeping moments. Although we were awake the rest of the ship must have been awake from 6.00am onwards as the ship was making its way through an ice filled channel and regularly crashing through large chunks of ice. The jolts dis...

We arrived just off Elephant island and anchored near Point Wild around 0700am. This was where Shackleton's men were left awaiting rescue, under the command of Frank Wild, while he headed to South Georgia to raise the alarm. Shackleton left on 24th April and returned on the 30th August 1916 with a Chilean tug boat captained by Luis Pardo, for whom there is a commemorative bust erected on the point, guarded by numerous chinstrap penguins. All 22 men were rescued -...

After last nights celebrations the restaurant was relatively empty even though everyone had an extra hour in bed as we put the clocks back an hour as we are now back to Argentinian time rather than South Georgia time. The seas were flat calm - very unusual we were told but everyone was very grateful for the amazing sea state - apparently the Captain didn't even have to use the stabilizers today which is an unusual phenomenon. On the schedule today we had three ...

We now have another two days at sea as we leave South Georgia and head for Elephant Island and the Antarctic peninsula. It was nice to have a day to relax and reflect on our 3 day wildlife fest in South Georgia and prepare for our next landings - this entailed having more bio security checks to make sure our outer clothes take nothing rogue to the Peninsula and doing some of our own washing - luckily they have a small laundry room on our deck which is one of th...

Gold harbour is a beautiful location- an amphitheatre of hanging glaciers, vertical cliffs and the towering snow covered peaks of Mount Paterson surrounding a huge curved beach full of penguins, fur seals and elephant seals. We had the second landing so disembarked at 0900am, there was a little bit of sleet in the air but the skies were brightening and the sun came out to make this a really warm and enjoyable visit. As the beach was almost full of wildlife we co...