Cruising Home...

I was picked up on 7^th January to set off home.  Due to leaving Signy mid-season this year, the taxi home this time was the Norwegian cruise ship the MS Fram instead of the BAS ship (the RRS Sir David Attenborough that we mostly use).  As a cruise ship has a set agenda for its passengers, instead of heading homewards, once onboard we set off south down to the Antarctic Peninsula.  A fellow scientist Richard who has been at Signy too, also travelled home on the same trip.

The ship visited a number of places along the way, with a first stop at Half Moon Island in the South Shetland Islands

Followed by the steamy volcanic Deception Island

We also stopped to see the beautiful glaciers and icebergs of Wilhelmina Bay along the Antarctic Peninsula

where this leopard seal was snoozing in the sunshine

 We regularly saw whales, including 56 orca one morning!

 

This was my favourite iceberg of the trip

 

As well as these sites, the ship visited a number of penguin colonies and other beautiful places along the way.  Onboard we were considered guest scientists which meant we answered a lot of questions from the passengers.  We also helped the other scientists onboard conducting whale watching stints from the bridge, biosecurity checking visitor's boots before they disembarked at sites and providing information points at penguin landing sites. 

When our Antarctic time was up, we headed north, across the Drake Passage (which was uncharacteristically calm and peaceful) to southern Chile where we travelled up through the fjords to the very pretty Garibaldi glacier, then finally onwards to civilisation at the most southerly cities in the world, Puerto Williams, Ushuaia, and Punta Arenas (depending on your definition of a city).  Here is Puerto Williams.  It was lovely to see greenery and flowers!

We finally arrived back in Punta Arenas on 17th January, where we were flown back to the UK over the following days and I eventually made it back to Swaledale on 21st January.  Its been a fantastic trip throughout and one which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.  It’s now lovely to be back home, although it would be nice if the rain eased enough for me to step out of the door.  Thanks for following my blog this season- I hope you've enjoyed my trip as much as I have!