January 15, 2008: Position Report

Tuesday, 15 January 2008 2000 UTC

Hovegaard Island

65 06.4 S 64 04.4 W

Another beautiful day in Antarctica. Hiked up to the top of Pleneau Island to enjoy the view and visit a gentoo colony. The chicks were in varying sizes, some half their adult's size. The anchorage is on the south side of Lemaire Channel, a narrow passage with steep walls, hanging glaciers and large ice fields reaching the water. As we were up top Holland America's Rotterdam cruised by, then turned around and retraced their steps. A reminder that civilization isn't far away. On our trip down off the cliff we walked through a small groups of various types of seals, a few leopard seals among them. We had one very large, and quite aggressive leopard seal, follow us closely in the dinghy. As a precaution, we lift the dinghy out of the water when we are not using it.

We will remain here for another day tomorrow, then proceed north about 20 miles to an anchorage near the old British research base, now a tourist base, of Lockroy.