For the afternoon landings, we had another choice to make. We could do a landing at Port Lockroy only, a landing at both Damoy Point and Port Lockroy, or a landing with a long hike at Damoy Point, followed by a shorter visit to Port Lockroy. The two sites are right next to each other. Port Lockroy is on a very small island–it includes a gift shop, a small museum, and a post office. Because it’s so small, they had to control the crowds so all 100+ of us weren’t there at the same time.

My uncle (looking up and waving here) headed out on a zodiac.

Jeff in his gear for our zodiac ride. The blue life vest apparently inflates automatically upon hitting the water. We never saw this in action, luckily.

The afternoon started out very foggy. Jeff & I had chosen to do the hike at Damoy Point, so we started there.

A fur seal was hanging out near our landing point.





It started to clear up a little as we got to the top of the glacier we were hiking on.

This is Tom, who takes even more pictures than I do.

The fog started to lift just in time for everyone to take photos before starting back down.


You can see the line of yellow penguins at Port Lockroy…they are non-native but still pretty interesting. This is looking down from the glacier on Damoy Point.





I took a picture of white.

Back at the bottom of the glacier was an old hut that was built in 1973 but hasn’t been used since 1993. It still contains scientific equipment and various artifacts.


Back outside I came across this egg as I hiked back toward the landing site.


A penguin headed toward our path.


But instead of crossing the path, he turned and started to hike with us!



By the time I got back to the zodiac boarding site, there was actual blue sky showing.

We were then ferried by zodiac over to Port Lockroy.

Remember the rule about staying at least 5 meters away from penguins? This island is so small and there are so many penguins that it’s not possible to do that here. But there are footpaths from the landing spot up to the building, so you pretty much just stay on those and try not to disturb any penguins too much.

The museum, gift shop, and post office are inside this building.


Mailing a letter at the post office. It takes 6-8 weeks for them to arrive.

You can also get your passport stamped here. It’s just for fun, of course, since Antarctica is not a country, but who doesn’t want a penguin in their passport?? Since Quark was holding our passports, they handled having them stamped for us. (And they’d provided a signup sheet where you could indicate if you did not want yours stamped.)

Leave your bag on the path, it gets snuggled by a penguin chick.









And then it was time to get back on the zodiac and head back to the ship.

It was nearly 7pm by the time we got back to the ship, and the day wasn’t over. We still had the re-cap, dinner, and sailing through the Lemaire Channel on tap for the night.