Another Dispatch from the South

Anoth­er email from Pam arrived about mid-day today:

Today, Mon­day, we went to Decep­tion Island. The day start­ed off sun­ny, around 37°F. Then it start­ed to sleet but we nev­er­the­less got to take a dip in the ther­mal water of Whaler’s Bay. I hand­ed my cam­era to a stranger and shout­ed “Please take me”, and she did, so I have some smil­ing pho­tos of me briefly dip­ping into the pool. I did­n’t need my bathing suit as I only went up to my ankles.

I’ve been doing activ­i­ties with the woman from Chica­go (men­tioned ear­li­er), a woman from Annapo­lis who lives on a boat, and anoth­er woman from Texas who’s on the trip to cel­e­brate her 40^th. We had a birth­day bash last night com­plete with a Mari­achi band. It was fun but we all knew we’d have to face the dip this morn­ing. I can’t believe I did it but we ‘girls’ made a pact! It’ll be some­thing to talk about tonight.

Today I saw my first ice­berg. It’s so hard to describe; it takes your breath away. Also saw loads of chin­strap pen­guins and fledg­lings. We real­ly want­ed to run up and hug them, they are soooo adorable. Also saw fur seals, and yes­ter­day, an alba­tross with an 11-foot wingspan. I hon­est­ly can’t describe how awe­some it’s been.

This is the first suc­cess­ful attempt to send mail from my room and and I’m excit­ed to send this off. Right now, my room faces an Argen­tin­ian mil­i­tary ship. They gave us a bit of a prob­lem com­ing ashore where we want­ed to, but even­tu­al­ly relent­ed. Our Cap­tain is a good nego­tia­tor.

Well, I have 35 min left on the clock so I’ll try to send anoth­er dis­patch in a day or 2. There’s so much more to describe so next time I’ll have every­thing in a note pad and then send it off.

The ship’s log has­n’t quite caught up with Pam’s account, but I sus­pect it will, soon.