When we woke up today, our photo was on the schedule TV from yesterday’s crossing of the Antarctic Circle. Our first excursion of the day was to Red Rock Ridge, which it turns out that none of the very experienced guides on our ship had ever been to before so it was an exciting adventure for everyone. We did the Zodiac cruise first and first saw some Antarctic Shags — these birds basically look like flying penguins so they’re easy to mistake from a distance. Shortly after that though, we did see several colonies of Adélie Penguins. Some of the islands around here almost looked tropical from a distance since they weren’t completely snow capped. After taking a handful of photos from the Zodiac, I had my very first landing on the actual continent of Antarctica at 10:53 on March 8th, 2019! I checked the last continent off my list while Jeremy and I shared our awe for the unreal landscape. James unfortunately wasn’t feeling well so he missed this one. We all hiked part-way up the mountain to get a good vantage over the bay. There was a line of people to take photos on a rock that was hanging over the ledge. That part seemed a bit touristy so I declined at first but then changed my mind since I thought it could be a cool photo. I wished I could have climbed all the way up to the top of the peak although I’m sure it looked much easier from where I was standing than it would actually be, especially considering the possibility of a snow-covered crevasse in the glacier.

Another spot that was mapped out for us looked between two rock cliffs down at where we had just been on the Zodiac watching penguins. I found a quiet spot and just spent a few minutes sitting and watching the penguins again from a distance and soaking in the views. I climbed over a handful of big rocks to the third designated spot and stopped to take some pictures of the Brown Skua birds which were having fun squawking at each other and flying in pairs over the area.

After lunch, it was our turn to do the sea kayak paddling excursion at Stonington Island. This was a great experience as it gave us the opportunity to float around in the water among the ice without the noisy engine of the Zodiacs. These two-person inflatable kayaks were super stable and were fun to paddle through the ice. Time flew by as we got this up-close view of the ice and watched a crabeater seal hop off land and swim around in the water.

We landed on Stonington Island which was home to two different bases — a British “Base E” as well as the American East Base. This was fun as we were able to actually walk around inside each of them to see how they lived. Neither of them had any working lights any more so we used the flashlight on our iPhones so see the paint peeling off the walls and warnings about asbestos. There was also a log book where we each signed our names. Even with ~180 people from our ship signing the book, only half the journal book had been filled since it was started in 2014. I got a kick out of all of the food labels of the stuff left behind in the pantry. What made me really sad though was that they used to keep sled dogs here, in wire fenced areas just outside. The views just a short walk away from these bases was absolutely incredible and I started to run out of time on the island, as I headed over to check out the American base quickly before the guides boarded it back up.