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Southern elephant seals enjoy a mud bath on the South Shetland Islands as gentoo penguins waddle about. Below,
an adult gentoo feeds a chick. Adult gentoo penguins will feed any of the chicks raised in its colony.
Continued from the previous page the icy water. Wilhelmina Bay is a great horseshoe-shaped island. Roughly 20
place to see whales, and from the Zodiac miles north of Deception Island we came
in which Waddington Bay and the we were able to observe Humpback and to Hannah Point on Livingston Island,
Vernadsky Research Base can be found. Minke whales, getting as close as the our last stop within the Antarctic Circle.
The Vernadsky Base is a permanently- rules allowed. We also encountered a fur Home to a large Gentoo and Chinstrap
staffed Ukrainian research station which seal sunning on an iceberg, the only fur Penguin colony as well as numerous
examines meteorology, geomagnetism, seal of the trip. elephant seals, this island is situated
seismology, glaciology and numerous between the Drake Passage and the
other scientific subjects. We were given a By the eleventh day of our trip we had Southern Ocean, making the ride to
tour of the facility and posted most of our arrived at the South Shetland Islands and shore in the small Zodiac the roughest
cards from there. Those of us who wished paid visits to Deception Island, which is ride of the trip.
were able to add a Ukrainian stamp to actually the caldera of an active volcano,
our passports. and Whalers Bay, located within the The final days of the cruise were spent
crossing the Drake Passage, with a detour
Cruising along the Penola Strait, we past Cape Horn and then sailing through
came upon the Petermann and Pleneau the Beagle Channel back to Ushuaia.
Islands roughly five miles north from the
Ukrainian research base. Here, the hardy Every day of the cruise, the team
among us were given the chance to camp hosted presentations that taught
out. A few really hardy souls took a polar us about icebergs, penguins, seals
plunge - two individuals plunged twice. and birds, as well as the history and
Following our camp out, we continued on geography of Antarctica. The coldest,
our northbound trajectory through the driest and windiest continent on earth,
Southern Gerlache Strait and Neumayer Antarctica has no government. Instead,
Channel until we reached Cuverville it is regulated by the Antarctic Treaty
Island and Wilhelmina Bay. Here, we System, which requires all tour operators
boarded a shallow, inflatable boat called abide by a set of rules governing where
a Zodiac and navigated our way across they can go, where visitors may land and
how many people may come ashore at one
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