MS National Geographic Explorer
Petermann Island and Booth Island
Tuesday, February 22, 2011

    This was one of those days that illustrate how changeable Antarctic weather can be. We awoke this morning to overcast skies, a light rain, and 30 to 35 knot winds. Before breakfast, we arrived off of Petermann Island after a night of strong ship rolling motion. Since the ship was traversing ice, the roll stabilizer wings had to be stowed safely away. I found the rolling motion to be very conductive of sleep.

    Despite the miserable conditions, we made a landing on Petermann Island to visit the gentoo and Adélie penguins. There were also a few Antarctic fur seals on the island as well. I took a few photographs, but the conditions were pretty tough on the camera gear, even with rain covers. I elected to take only a single camera/lens on shore.

    I returned to the ship after about 90 minutes on shore and warmed up after drying out the camera gear. During lunch, the ship repositioned the short distance to Booth Island, where I had visited about a week ago. The weather condition were about the same as at Petermann, but landings were made as well as Zodiac cruises out into the iceberg graveyard.

    About 6 pm, the ship weighed anchor, again, and headed north back through the Lemaire Channel and on through the Gerlache Strait on our way to Deception Island. The weather in the Gerlache Strait was clear and dry, though we could still see the clouds to our south. There was a nice sunset and moonrise in the Gerlache Strait just a matter of 30 minutes apart.