Day 17 – Submarine Day

There was so much happening today, it is hard to know where to begin, so I will begin with the morning. We travel in Bird Safe Mode at night so all the room darkening shades are down from dusk to at least dawn. Since the sun rises here about 2 am, our shades are down long past dawn. Today when we rose our shade we were surprised to find a fairly large pod of humpback whales feeding in the harbour and some of them stayed around all day.

We think some of them were moms and calves. It was so fun to watch them.

We also had “schools” of Gentoo penguins swimming around our ship.

We took the zodiac over to the rocky shore to see the Gentoo colony, including some chicks. Technically, we are in the region of Antarctica, but have not set foot on the continent. We were on the South Shetland Islands today.

This guy was the greeter.

Here is mom feeding her chick.

Two of these are not like the others…cormorants

We also took a submarine ride this afternoon. Yes, I joined Bill on the sub.

We went down 450 feet. There were lots of sponges and starfish and some coral. The technology is amazing and it was interesting that our bright red jackets lost all their color as the submarine dove below the surface.

And slowly they gained color back – first burgundy and then red. Apparently, red is the first color to disappear with depth.

There were six passengers and a pilot on the submarine. Our submarine is named John. The other submarine with this ship is George and the other Viking expedition ship uses Ringo and Paul.

It is quite cozy on the submarine.

It is New Year’s Eve – so there is music until midnight and they provided hats, tiaras, and horns for us.

Happy New Year, dear friends. May you be blessed with much joy and peace in 2026!