Day 14 - Brown Bluff landing and Esperanza base
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Morning: We landed at Brown Bluff under completely sunny skies. The beach was teeming with wildlife—Gentoo and Adélie penguins, a few fur seals, and even giant skuas. Some penguins still seemed to be nesting, which was surprising for this time of year. Taking photos on the beach was such a pleasure that I didn’t notice when Jordi took a group up a small hill nearby. However, the time I spent almost alone on the beach felt special. One penguin caught my attention as it carefully built its nest with pebbles. I later walked alone through the penguins and fur seals to join part of the group on the other side of the beach, near the base of a glacier. I took a few steps onto the glacier, which was slippery and bare of snow, with only rocks and dust providing some traction.
Afternoon: We visited Esperanza, an Argentinian permanent base with around 60 residents. The base included 10 families and 15 children who have their own school. There’s a small open-air museum, a closed-door museum, a chapel, a school, and a post office where you can send postcards anywhere in the world for $10—although I was more interested in getting stamps. (Note: due to the Covid pandemic, it took more than a year for those sent postcards to arrive, but they did!) After returning to the ship, we set sail and headed towards the South Shetland islands. Overnight, watches were scheduled, and mine was at 4 AM, so I went to bed early. However, as we crossed the Bransfield Strait, which separates the South Shetlands from the Antarctic Peninsula, we alternated between sailing and motoring, and the watches were canceled before 2 AM.
Brown Bluff
