One channel among the many that thread through the Antarctic Peninsula is famous—Lemaire. This short narrow passage allows vessels to travel southward along the coast without having to enter the potentially tumultuous open Southern Ocean waters. The channel was discovered and first traversed by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition under the guidance of Lt. Adrien de Gerlache in 1898. Gerlache was honoring the Belgian explorer Charles Lemaire who traveled through the Congo. Our transit started early in the morning under a shroud of heavy clouds and light rain. But being able to see even just the lower couple hundred meters of the cliffs was spectacular.
Just before the breakfast announcement was made we turned at the southern end of the channel and rounded the corner of Booth Island. For the morning we would be anchored in a wide bay formed by the southern shore of the island. Immediately after breakfast shuttles began taking people ashore. The landing was near the spot where penguins came ashore and marched across the expanse of snow to get to their breeding sites high on the ridge where the snow was clear and rocks exposed. We trudged across the snowfield in our own people trail to reach the ridge and view all three species of brush-tailed penguins. The rest of the group boarded the Zodiacs for an amazing cruise amongst some of the large icebergs that had become grounded and stranded in the shallow water. Endless unique sculptures were formed by the huge bergs and many thousands of images were made to remember these ephemeral art pieces.
During lunch we started south but it was not too long after leaving that a small group of killer whales were spotted. The captain turned the ship slowly so we could get good views of the animals as well as a number of humpback whales that were also in the area.
By the end of dinner we had already crossed that imaginary line denoting the Antarctic Circle. The skies had parted some so it was a lovely evening passing some huge castle shaped Antarctic icebergs.
