Surprise SOB

During the Science on Viking talk, we got a notice about an SOB opportunity for the next day. And that would be a “Special Operations Boat”. So I was able to get mom scheduled for Friday Jan 17 at 930 am, and my sister and I at 1030. We helped mom get ready, and my sister helped her down to the midship.

Meanwhile, I visited the UK Antarctica Heritage Trust store. They oversee several historic locations and the 5 volunteers for the season are based at Port Lockroy. They boarded the ship and had breakfast, then gave a history during a daily briefing. They also operate the most southern post office.

Mom was back just before we went on our SOB ride. We saw lots of penguins, a couple humpback whales in the distance, and 3 seals! A crabeater, leopard, and Weddell seal.

My sister are I were supposed to kayak at 130pm, and then the three of us were supposed to set foot on Antarctica at 330pm. However the winds and waves didn’t cooperate, with all scheduled excursions cancelled just after 1. Such is the life here in Antarctica!

The ship moved down the coast, and everyone who had been scheduled got rescheduled for zodiac rides. The three of us went at 430 pm. It was rougher water and we got sprayed a few times, but we saw lots of chinstrap and Gentoo penguins.

My sister and I before our SOB:

During our SOB, a leopard seal was chilling on the ice, when the crabeater seal started bobbing out of the water to see what was up. Eventually he jumped up on the ice with the leopard seal. Kata, our SOB guide, was telling us that leopard seals eat crabeaters, so we were waiting to see if nature would do its thing. Ultimately, the 2 seals laid done to rest.

And a weddell seal was resting on the rocks.

In the afternoon the 3 of us got bundled up for our zodiak cruise.

Before going on the zodiac, my sister and I visited the spa to enjoy the pool, hot tub, sauna and snow grotto.

We attended a geology presentation at 8, yet we discovered our night was not over! The Viking ship Octantis met up with us. They left a few days before us, but one of their passengers was missing their luggage. Our ship brought it down! And then as our ships parted ways, a pod of orcas swam between our boats!

A view of our sister ship, the Octanis

And the orcas that swam between our ships!

Currently our schedule for tomorrow is an SOB ride at 9am.