One casualty of the positive COVID tests is that our trip to the Falkland Islands is cancelled. Falkland Islands is a group of islands off the coast of Argentina belonging to the British. It has a population of around 5,000. Since the pandemic they have zero COVID cases so they are very careful who they allow to come ashore. It's good judgement on the part of the Captain to cancel that trip because we don't want to bring the virus to the island. I don't hear any passenger complaining because we've been told before we came on this cruise that anything can happen during the trip. What it means is that we have more days to spend in Antarctica.
Today we are scheduled to land at Brown Station. It's an Argentinian base and research station. There are a few buildings here plus lots of Gentoo penguins.
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| Brown Station |
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| Landing at Brown Station |
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| Climbing Up the Hill |
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| Penguin Welcoming Party |
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| This is our HOME! |
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| Hello People! |
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| MS Roald Amundsen in the background |
The only exciting thing to do here is climbing up a small hill and sliding down. It doesn't sound exciting to me because I ski. For others it's a lot of fun. I just hung around the buildings taking pictures of the penguins. After about an hour or so I am ready to go back to the mother ship.
There is an optional overnight camping activity for those who want to try camping in Antarctica. From what I heard it's not cheap - about 400 euros. I don't understand the thrill of camping in the cold but for some it's a fun thing to do. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it was canceled because the water was too rough for the expedition boats to land at the island where they were supposed to camp. So much for that.
The following maps give you a perspective of where Brown Station is. It takes the ship 2 days to cross the Drake Passage.
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| Antarctica separated from South America by the Drake Passage |
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| Brown Station in Antarctica |
Sailing towards Brown Station we see a lot of icebergs floating in the water and beautiful snow-covered mountains. Here are some of the pictures.
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| An Iceberg |
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| A Zodiac in the water |
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| Zodiac among the Icebergs |
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