close to the boat and lifted his head out of the water to have a look. Apparently their vision is just as good out of the water as in it, and it was amazing to see that he actually was looking at us! Being eye to eye with such a magnificent but strange looking creature was unbelievable!! Once having a good look he then dived under the boat and gave us a bit of a shove!! He was in a playful mood so we were told!!

All too soon it was time to head back to the beach. It had been an amazing experience, well worth the three days it had taken to get here, and certainly one of the most memorable animal experiences we’ve had!! We really hoped that there would be more whale encounters to come in Antarctica. Back on dry land we thanked our skipper and headed off for a celebratory drink and a fab pizza in a local restaurant.

The next day we thought we head out for a walk along the coast as there was a sea lion colony and the coast generally looked like it would be a nice walk out. We weren’t really planning on going very far, so we didn’t take any water or food, which turned out to be a slight error in the desert-like conditions!! But despite being a little parched the walk was great. We started out with a walk across the grasslands, but were soon into the sand dunes! It was fairly hard going at this stage, but soon we were across them and back to the grasslands, where we caught a glimpse of a Patagonian Hare scampering away in the distance. Eventually we got a good view of the coast, and saw the sea lions in the distance. At this point we’d walked a fair way, and could see the whale watching boats going out, and wondered if we could walk far enough to see the bay where the whales were. After another half an hour’s slog in the midday heat we were rewarded with a very distant but very clear view of the whales again.