WE LANDED on Elephant Island

Tuesday, January 24, 2012  10:00am 34*

Icebergs, Glaciers and Shackleton’s Landing

Chinstraps on an iceflow

Out of the “Bet Cave” at 6:15 and up to the Observation Lounge, I was in search of icebergs,  Amazingly the sun was out and I was able to see some patches of blue sky with low puffy clouds ahead. I thought I could make out some icebergs in the distance, but was unsure if they were really icebergs or clouds.  As the ship continued its journey, I was seeing two icebergs on the port side.  How exciting was that! I sat alone in the lounge drinking a cup of tea, enjoying the solitude.  Occasionally someone would come in and I pointed out what I thought were icebergs.  Slowly the lounge got a small crowd and we inched closer to Elephant Island.  Tall, tall craggy mountains appeared in the distance.  It was magical to see the mist rise and land appear. 

At breakfast, I was talking with friends and we all agreed just how fortunate we are, witnessing all this glorious beauty around us.  As a child and even up into my 40s, I never considered coming to Antarctica.  We decided we are here because we have cruise friends who have been here and returned home safe and sound….. so we too could do the same.

As we anchored off Point Wild, the beauty of the glaciers and rugged peaks beaconed me to get my camera.  Standing on the back deck, out of the wind, I heard penguins first, them smelled them and finally I saw them on top of the stumpy columns, up on hillsides and down at water level.

Our Expedition Leader, Robin had never been able to land on Elephant Island in his 10 years in the Antarctic.  Well, our weather juju continued, much to the dismay of the team.  Each of us touched foot on Elephant Island.  

Shoshanah, our zodi driver took us out to an iceberg with chinstrap penguins resting on top. We went around the berg and spotted two humpback whales going by us.  We ran with them for a bit then returned back to the iceberg and our chinstraps.  Those persistent little birds were unstoppable to get back on that berg.  As much as they tried to jump back up, very few succeeded.  Even with our encouragement, they never gave up, but few made it.  

Beth on Elephant Island

Our landing spot for today was Point Wild, where Shackelton’s team stayed for four months through the winter, while they waited for the return of their leader.  Lucky for us, we have the statue of their rescuer, in our pictures as evidence of our setting foot here!  Very few have been able to land here.  Usually the waters are too rough to make landing possible.  (Silversea wrote up a press release on our landing and it is posted on their website.  We also heard that an Italian newspaper reported our landing, maybe to take our success away from the Costa disaster.) 

Five more days of juju to remain…… In my true wisdom (haha), I told Juan Carlos that one person from our 123 passengers onboard should be on any other South Georgia cruise to ensure good weather in the future. Oh, and we would be a part of the Expedition Team. He totally agreed with me.

Besides our amazing landing, another delightful thing happened today.  As we were waiting our turn on the zodiacs, our group was last today, we had another ship come up, pass us and anchor right in front of the glacier.  Now we were kind of amazed at this.  Apparently this ship, the GAP Expedition Monrovia was to anchor at 5:00 this morning.  Something happened and they were late, so our zodiacs got out first.  As we were standing on the back deck enjoying watching our zodiacs zoom all over the area, we noticed a zodiac come across to water from the Monrovia with just the driver and one other person.  At our hatch, one of the cute butlers, Catalino, down the hall was standing there and went back in.  We found out shortly that the person in the Monrovia zodiac was the wife of our butler.  She had been granted permission to come over to visit her husband.  Now this popped into my mind.  “Honey, let’s make a date on January 24, 2012 on Elephant Island.”  How wonderful that must have been for these two special people who rarely get to see each other.  

Next stop, the last continent!!!