Day Nine - BBQ!!!!

Last night was camping on a little piece of land just off shore from Versaksdy. Regardless what the individual booking your trip tells you, not everyone gets to do this (and not everyone SHOULD do it). It’s caped at 20 and I understand now why. There is a lot of manual work that goes into camping on the continent. Not only do you and your tent mate have to compress down enough snow to fit a 6’ x 4’ tent (and you have to compress down about 2’ of snow to pull it off) but try doing that, and having the staff teach you the unique ways of burying ice axes in snow so your tent will stay in 20-30 knot winds and possibly driving snow storms.

From Antarctica

The above photo was taken at 12:30am.

From Antarctica

Last night was, as this whole trip has been, abnormally perfect. 3 knot winds, light clouds, and a night so perfect I started the evening with my sleeping bag outside under the sky. Last trip - rain, 20 knot winds, tents flying away.



I wish I could have seen stars last night but it is the middle of their summer so there is never a minute when the sky goes black – you get 3 hours of dusk. What surprised me was once the sun went down frost just appeared on everything almost instantly. No wind forced this. It got so cold so quickly my sleeping bag almost iced solid. In any case, I got my 2 hours of sleep (partially my mistake from taking pics from our location, partially because ice is hard) and can now safely say I’ve slept on the Antarctic peninsula. Oh! And we learned that you CAN get a sunburn at 3am. One other guy stayed outside of his tent all night and from the little breathing hole in his sleeping bag he managed to get a little sunburn. Who knew - but it does make sense. Oh well, just a war story to share with friends.


Two new, different landings today at Peterman Island (Port Lockroy). Peterman is small. So small that the zodiacs have to split the passengers so half go to one rock for a while and half go to the other small rock - then they switch. Fun huh? I wouldn't know - kayaking time!!

We get to do our own private adventure down the Peltia Channel. This is a private entrance for the kayakers! The boat could do it but it takes too long so they decided not to do it.

From Antarctica

If you kayak a lot in the cold you get really hungry. I've been craving BBQ and fries for a week now. Today, it all comes to a climax for me! Only the second day of 100% clear skies the entire year at Peterman and not a bad day nor place for an outdoor bbq. The last trip when they did their first bbq, the weather turned so cold so fast that the second chicken came off the grill, it was instantly cold. Not today! It was fantastic in fact. The rear of the boat was up against an ice sheet that would occasionally calf off. BBQ weather in Antarctica is any time that the wind is fairly calm, the sun is out, and it's almost 40. Works for me!

From Antarctica

From Antarctica