This morning, our Expedition Leader, Olivia, woke us up with a ship-wide announcement that we were going to sail through the La Mer Passage. This was a beautiful way to start the day! Wow!

La Mer was our southernmost visit on this voyage. After traveling down the passage and then heading back out, we turned northeast towards Goudier Island in the small harbor of Port Lockroy.

The port was originally established as a whaling station and you can see remnants today – oversized rusting chains where whaling ships used to tie up and a whale skeleton on the beach.

This little harbor has three islands. The largest is Goudier Island which has a research station with five scientists and a bunch of penguins living on it. There are also two smaller islands with penguins all over the place. In addition, there are black and white corcoran birds which look a lot like penguins, but they can actually fly. It’s easy to confuse the two from a distance.

After its whaling past, today, Goudier Island is dedicated to research and history, and it has a small museum for those brave enough to venture here. But perhaps the most interesting thing, though, is that this is the southernmost post office in the world. And here’s where worlds collide.

Our cruise ship brought 5.9 metric tons of supplies from England down this little island. These supplies left the UK in September and traveled a round-about way across the world until it was loaded on our ship in Ushuaia on December 8th. The payload included food, toiletries, and other essentials, but most importantly, Christmas presents from family members to the scientists! 

As long as our ship was meeting up with the island, one of the Goudier scientists came on board to give a lecture, and she brought a mailbox with her so we could send postcards from Antarctica.

Chad and I took a zodiac cruise at the end of the day, 6 pm. Our guide zipped us around the islands. We saw lots of penguins, of course. What was interesting was seeing some Adelie penguins which aren’t usually found this far south or west, so our guide steer our little boat over to them and then radioed the other guides to let them know to motor over as well.

We also saw two weddell seals sunning themselves plus a large flock of black and white corcorans roosting on the rocks with some of their chicks.

Back on the boat, we met up with Jolie and Lucy for another leisurely dinner. I’m now sitting in the Explorers’ Lounge with a final glass of wine, still astounded at the view around me. I want to just sit here and watch the scenery pass by. I feel so lucky to witness this. But I know we have a hike in the morning, so I’ll head to bed and know that it will be another amazing day tomorrow.