Kaibab Journal - Antarctica Days 22 and 23

King penguins		Farthest south!
Back	Days 22 & 23 - At Sea	Next

This journal is constructed as one web page for each day of my journey, including the arrival day in Auckland, and the final two days, which I spent in Hobart. I have tried to keep the picture images of a reasonable size for easy web page loading. To see a much larger view of (practically) any image, just left-click on the photo.

Day 22 started out foggy with virtually no visibility. The ocean swells (which don't look very serious, but have a magnified effect on the ship; especially the higher decks) continued all day. We had a lecture and a film in the morning, and, again, in the afternoon. In the late morning, the fog lifted and we could see for quite a distance. We spotted some fin whales nearby and watched them for quite some time. In the afternoon, I packed up all of my cold weather gear. I brought my stuff in "space bags" in order to minimize the size of my bags. That worked out well, and since I was able to borrow a vacuum on board, I was able to compact my gear quite nicely for the return flight.

At dinner I finally got sucked into a political discussion. So far, I had avoided this throughout the trip. Really, who wants to talk politics when we are on this fantastic trip? Well, some did. On more than one occasion, I left the lounge when the chatting took this turn. But, at dinner, I got badgered into a discussion and spoke my mind. So it goes. In the evening, we had an impromptu presentation by two researchers that we picked up at Macquarie Island. They had been walking back and forth across the island taking magnetic readings. Interesting way to spend a summer! When I headed back to my cabin, to turn in for the night, I had an invitation waiting - I will be joining Jane, our trip leader, for dinner on our final night.

Day 23 started out just like the previous one - a foggy morning. We closed out our accounts with the hotel operation, store, bar and the ship (my e-mail bill was about $30 - I sent about one per day). My last charge purchase was for a penguin tie, which I wore to dinner. Any other purchases later in the day are cash only. We had a morning presentation on Hobart and we watched a Quark promotional video. The afternoon was spent packing up. A late afternoon session involved our disembarking procedure - we have customs officials come on board to check passports, et al. Tim and Kirsten put together a neat slide show of our journey that we all liked.

There was a cocktail party with the captain, at 6:45, and then dinner, billed as a Russian affair. Mike got an invite to the captain's table and said it was really quite a surreal event. Dinner with Jane (along with Ian, Paul and Kozue) was great - we all had a good time chatting it up. There were just a few of us up in the bar at 11:30 p.m. when I decided to turn in. Tomorrow - Hobart.