Paula's Antarctic Blog: Day 15 Port Lockroy , last stop in Antarctica

Our last day in Antarctica and we awoke to a 40 mph wind and cloudy skies with snow predicted. Our stop this morning is in Port Lockroy which is a natural harbour located on the western side of Wiencke Island. It was discovered in 1903 and mainly used by whalers. In Feb. 1944 the British established "Base A" on Goudier Island as a scientific research station. Today the research station is opened during the summer as a museum and Post Office. It is our only stop to get postcards with an Antarctic stamp. Determined to continue our tradition of sending a postcard to our grandkids from everywhere we travel, we braved the wildest zodiac ride through the wind and waves to the island. The mail is sent from Port Lockroy to the Falkland Islands, then the mainland and hopefully will eventually show up in Nashville & Knoxville. It will be fun to see how long that takes. As I have mentioned before, our ship has several advantages over larger cruise lines. At most stops the number of visitors allowed off the ship and on the island at one time is between 50-100. In our case we have 127 passengers, so we were put in "zodiac" groups and the staff rotates which group leaves first for each stop. We can easily get everyone on shore and back with ample time to site see. And it is done in an efficient way. Having said that, yesterday's seas were such a challenge each group was given a very strict 45 min at the museum and gift shop. However, the weather conditions deteriorated so quickly the Capt. ordered the team to get us back, NOW! We did have enough time to get the cards posted, though.

After leaving Port Lockroy, we started our journey back to Ushuaia, Argentina...which will be a 2.5 day trip. The winds continued to increase with gusts of over 65mph. It did start snowing as the pictures will show. Not long after lunch there was an announcement made that whales had been sighted, so despite the wind, and snow and rocking boat...everyone was outside to view Orcas, then Humpback whales swimming along with the ship. The Orcas were first and the pod had at least 15 traveling together. Due to the weather, the pics are not as clear, but you can see, especially the ones right off our veranda, pretty well. What a sight!

We can honestly say, this has been quite an adventure and I think Rick and I are returning with a new feeling of how small we are in this great big world. We both felt a spiritual connection with Rick's dad who died several years ago, but had shared stories with Rick of accompanying Admiral Byrd to Antarctica after WW II on Operation Highjump and my mom who passed away 4 days into our trip. We felt them with us everyday. There is just something about the vastness, harshness, yet beauty that makes up this part of the world.