One of the birds that we were all hoping to see on our Antarctic trip, was the Antarctic Petrel. Although this bird is quite numerous in the area, they are rarely seen. Perhaps due to the fact that we were early in the season, we really did get lucky with this special bird.

As we headed further south towards the Antarctic peninsula we started to hit lots of ice. One of the dangers of the trips early in the season, is that if there is still lots of ice about it can be near impossible to venture further into the peninsula. As it was, the captain decided that there was far too much ice to make a safe trip, so we reluctantly turned around to head to more islands just north of the peninsula, but still inside Antarctica. Perhaps this was actually a really good move as after seeing a few Antarctic Petrels at the southern most point we got to, in very poor early morning light, after turning the ship around we sailed into much brighter weather, albeit a bit breezy!!

The wind was high enough for the lower decks to be closed for safety

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