24TH JANUARY

Booth and Pleneau Islands, Lemaire Channel, Port Lockroy

After our breakfast we changed to get ready for our zodiac cruise. We were all feeling slightly hungover after our late night! The weather was foggy and we had a planned two hour zodiac cruise checking out icebergs!

Thankfully we all managed to get in Speedy’s zodiac and off we went in true style. Again it was quite an eerie experience and we were thankful that Speedy seemed to know where he was going. It was bitterly cold and it suddenly dawned on us that we were going in be in this zodiac for a whole two hours! We were cold before we even got to the icebergs. The icebergs were amazing and the colours were fantastic even in this dull light. We saw three Crabeater seals swimming around in the water and the divers decided it was time to go snorkelling with

them! The icebergs were huge and the luminous blues that shone from deep within them was nothing short of magical. The icebergs almost looked like little tropical islands with the underwater ice illuminating the edge of the bergs. Slowly the fog began to lift and we could see further and further. More and more icebergs appeared and the colours were even more entrancing. After an hour or so we were bitterly cold and Doris kept trying to persuade one of us to fall overboard so we could head back to the ship! Finally the time came to head back and the zodiac ride was finished off in superb Speedy style with him treating us to a few doughnuts, something I never thought we would end up doing in Antarctica - what fun and the more we cheered the faster he span the boat! Speedy kept the zodiac spinning round and round until the landing ladder was finally cleared and we were able to re-board the ship, all feeling a tad dizzy!