Vistas of a Whitescape

This morning the ship crew gave out the Polar Plunge certificates.

They read as follows:  This certifies that on the 9th day of March in the year 2010, (Steve K, Jose D, Chad L, Carl P, Tim B, George F) plunged (by choice) into the frigid and icy waters of Paradise Harbor, in the Southern Ocean, watched by 53 courageous fellow plungers & 63 gutless shipmates, at Lat 64 45S and Long 62 48W, when the observed temperature of the ocean registered 1 degree on the Celsius scale.  We do solemnly acknowledge this act of outright courageousness/stupidity in participating in the hardcore plunge.

John Steinberg did get issued a certificate of nonparticipation suitable for framing.  I will not quote it directly.  There was verbiage about not “manning up. “It will look nice in his office!” said Jose Dominguez.

A comment from John Steinberg – I use iced saline to stop a heart when I perform surgery.  There were two defibrillators present during this activity.  I was reminded of the famous Missouri saying “Here, hold my beer and watch this.”

Without question, today was the most spectacular day visually for us.  We started by traveling down and then up the Lemaire Channel also known as Kodak Channel, or the Fuji Funnel because it is so photographed.  The channel had lots of ice chunks and some areas that were lined with ice. Pretty much the entire channel, which is no more than 300 meters wide, is surrounded by glaciers that calve into the channel.

From there we cruised over to the Palmer Station, which is on Anvers Island Palmer Station is named after Nathaniel Palmer, an American sealer, who was one of the people to see the Antarctic Continent.  The view around Palmer Station was fantastic.  It was almost beyond description. The sun came out for the first time since we left Ushuaia.  Mountains and glaciers surrounded us.  Mount Francais towers behind the station, and at nearly 10,000 feet tall, it is the largest mountain on the Antarctic Peninsula.

In the “it’s a small world” category, I met a good friend of Dr. Bruce Korf at the station.  Bruce is probably the world’s foremost authority on neurofibromatosis.  In fact, he did write the book we all use as a guideline.

We are now comfortably cruising into the Drake Passage and are working our way back to the Beagle Channel and ultimately home.  I think I can speak for the rest of the team when I say we are missing our families very much at this point and are anxious to be home.

Tomorrow will be our last blog entry until we arrive in Ushuaia.

Cheers,

Steve