Monday, December 29, 2008 - Coulman Island

We woke again this morning to brilliant sunshine and very little wind. How lucky can we be? Khlebnikov was smashing her way towards Coulman Island through absolutely beautiful ice and icebergs. We had emperor penguins in the water and on the ice and snow petrels flying all around the ship. What a scene – it just doesn’t get much better. The high peaks of Coulman Island soared into the blue sky with the ice glistening in the sunshine.

Just after 9 a.m. Jonas called us all out on the bow to enjoy the spectacular scenery. It was truly stunning and those not wanting the bow were either on the bridge or on the stern. Long lenses were focused everywhere.

Soon after, Captain Pavel did a very nifty bit of maneuvering to put the ship stern first into the ice. It took a little while to get a firm berth, but soon after the gangway was down and we were encouraged to walk over the ice to the emperors. As with Cape Washington the colony had broken up into small satellite groups, many of which had already made their way towards the open water. Some groups were just chicks but some were a mix of adults and chicks. Most of the chicks looked about ready to “take the first plunge” and see if they knew how to swim and how to feed themselves. Talk about baptism by fire!!
Some of the ice we walked over was fairly soft and many of us sank up to our knees in soft snow, but nearly everyone struggled on to make it to the penguins. The sunshine was wonderful again, but there was a very cold wind blowing making it difficult to stand still for any length of time. If we were moving and struggling through the ice we kept warm.

Jonas called us all back to the ship at midday, as our superb chefs put on an Antarctic Barbecue. Because of the unreliable ice we were walking on, the barbecue was held on the bow in the sunshine. Soon tables and benches were set up together with the full barbecue cookers and Debbie was there to serve cold beer or hot gluwein. Due to the extremely cold wind which almost froze us in our tracks, the hot beverages were very popular. It was a little tricky to keep our plastic cutlery, paper napkins and paper plates from sailing over the deck, but we soon became experts and many of us decided it was easier to just dump the cutlery and use our fingers. We had a lovely spicy soup, fantastic barbecued meat and sausages, corn on the cob, baked potatoes and of course the usual wonderful salads. This was followed by large chocolate chip cookies. We have decided Melissa, our baker, will be responsible for a lot of excess “weight” on this voyage. As she is slim as a pencil, she cannot possibly eat her own food. However, the cookies were to die for, but fortunately nobody did actually “die” from eating them.

Jonas then gave us all a bonus and announced that the ship would stay in the same position until 6 p.m. so of course after lunch it was back on with the life jackets and off we went again. By now we had lots of emperors around the ship and even some Weddell Seals. The skuas were also in close attendance as they had hoped to join the barbecue, but they were unlucky as everything was cleaned up very quickly and efficiently, leaving no trace of us even being on the bow to eat.

It was a happy group in the bar that evening, talking about all they had seen and done, although there were a few complaining of sore muscles as walking in some places had required some strength and stamina.