ESPAÑOL

• I was here: the ship dropped anchor here the first day to spend the “night” of December 28, 2007, and one more hour on December 30, 2007.
• My score: 2/5, although I admit that we were not lucky in this place.

Immediately southwest of Neko Harbour we will find Paradise Bay, another prominent natural harbor, whose shape is little like that of the previous one, since the bay is much more open, but it is protected from the ocean by the presence of Lemaire Island to the north and Bryde Island to the northwest. Paradise Bay was named by the whalers who worked in the area, and after Neko Harbour, it is our second and last stop on the continent, since all other landings are made on islands.

Paradise Bay was one of the weakest stops of the cruise, but it could have been as good or better than any other. After spending a lot of time in Neko Harbour, on our first visit there was no time to disembark here, so we just observe the surroundings from the ship, which was anchored in a bay cove called Skontorp Cove, overlooking an impressive glacier, that although here is an anonymous glacier, one of many, it would surely be famous if it were in Patagonia, the Rocky Mountains, Switzerland or any similar area. This glacier could have provided us with icebergs of all kinds of forms, but the ones we found there were scarce and boring.

Luckily, we were able to observe new wildlife. In this case it was our first and discreet contact with the whales, specifically several humpback whales that were seen from the top of the ship, rather they let their dorsal fins be seen.

The second visit was unexpected. Already heading back to Ushuaia, the ship intended to stop at Port Charcot, but bad weather made it impossible. As it was planned that this was the last stop, the captain had the detail of continuing in a northeasterly direction and stopping again in Paradise Bay, although there was little light, which affected the already doubtful quality of my photographs, being more than 10 pm at “night”, although it was not a big problem if we consider that in the Antarctic in summer there is no night.

In Paradise Bay there are two scientific bases, Argentine Almirante Brown, and Chilean President Gabriel González Videla. On our second visit we stopped at the Argentine base, although it was unoccupied. From there we could hike through a steep mound to appreciate views of the bay, and slide down, we enjoyed like kids.

<FULL CRUISE ITINERARY TO ANTARCTICA

<DRAKE PASSAGE

<HALF MOON ISLAND

<DECEPTION ISLAND

<CUVERVILLE ISLAND

<NEKO HARBOUR

PORT LOCKROY>

LEMAIRE CHANNEL>

PLENEAU ISLAND>

PETERMANN ISLAND>

∇ Destinations / ∇ Antarctica