Page 39 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL2

Peninsula. The passengers came outside to the open decks and stared at the spectacular surrounding scenery of snow-covered mountains and icebergs of all sizes scattered around the ship. We finally arrived at the windiest, driest and coldest place on earth, where winter temperatures can drop to minus 50 degrees Celsius and there is no permanent human settlement. Our visit was during the summer months in Antarctica between November and April, with the coldest temperature a bearable minus 10 degrees.The Ushuaia cruised along the coast of the peninsula, allowing the passengers to enjoy the beautiful scenery and sunny days with warm temperatures of 2 degrees. One main attraction was an enormous glacier stretching from the top of the snow-covered mountain range to the sea. The warm weather caused the glacier to crack and break into huge icebergs floating away in the ocean. It was a rare and awesome sight to see a gigantic iceberg dwarfing a cruise ship approaching in the distance. Our ship safely passed a few very large icebergs along the way, and it was exciting to see groups of penguins riding on some of them.For the next seven days we made two landings a day on the ship’s Zodiac boats to some islands and bays to visit penguin communities and seal habitats. We saw three species of penguins – Adelie, gentoo and chinstrap – and closely observed their ways of life, especially their incubating activities. The Adelie penguin, the smallest in size, stood at 70-75 cm tall and weighed 3-6 kg, while the gentoo penguin, the largest species we saw, had a body length of 80 cm and a weight of 6-7 kg. The chinstrap penguin, with its pleasantA chinstrap penguin.Weddell seal.„Elephant seal.Elite+ 37