After our epic first day of landings – we had a karaoke contest, lead by the legendary barkeeper, Fabian. As an intro, he took the first two songs, and intentionally did them terribly to make everyone more comfortable. I suspect he would have a great voice if he was trying – but we all knew what he was doing. He also dressed as a clown, for good measure.

Having run a karaoke event at work before, I know how hard it is to get the first few people up – so I volunteered next, and absolutely butchered ERB Alexander the Great, which was frustrating for a song I’ve done so many times before. Needless to say, I did not win.

Conall killed with a song from The Killers. I’ll see myself out.

Thanks Jess for the first shot, and Rivu for the ones of myself and Conall.

But the star of the show was Bethany. She sings in her church choir back in the States, but is not a trained singer. She has a very powerful voice. The finals would be held on the way back – luckily for those in attendance, I didn’t have to perform again.

The next day, as we were woken by the normal “Good morning Antarcticans” morning call, a quick look out of the window revealed how conditions had changed. Antarctica is known for a lot of things – good weather is not one of them.

There was some excitement – with a humpback whale outside. November isn’t a great month to see whales in Antarctica, but we had already seen a few, and this would not be the last one.

The MV Ushuaia Ship has amazing photos of the frozen continent throughout the ship. One is of a whale’s tail with water pouring off it. When I saw this, I immediately wanted to try and replicate this shot. I quickly learned that this would require a lot of luck, and a lot of tries. I got two shots where the water was visible on this occasion, but none that I was happy with.

The scenery in the area was incredible. While the South Shetland Islands are really beautiful, you can tell you are truly in the land of ice when as you get further south.

Our landing for the second morning after the crossing was on Two Hummock Island (and no, that’s not a typo). This is part of the Palmer Archipelago, just off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. As always, the penguins were incredible to watch – it’s something you have to see, photos and words don’t do it justice. A video doesn’t even capture them that well.

A selfie with my roommate, Manuel from the Philippines.

There’s a beautiful mountain in the area, I forget the height, I don’t even think it is 1000m – but to climb it would be mixed rock and ice, and include glacier crossings to reach the base. Its funny – Antarctica has, by far, the highest concentration of unclimbed mountains for any continent. Until you actually go there, you don’t realise that the reason for this is not just access – but even this far north, many of the mountains would be incredibly difficult for something of very modest height. I can only imagine how difficult a taller peak further inland – one which would be difficult to even reach – must be.

This island would be our only landing on the Palmer Archipelago, and was definitely one of the most beautiful spots – with a great mix of wildlife, glaciers and cliffs.

The above are blue eyed cormorants, the island is a famous spot for these birds.

The general rule is that you can’t get closer than 3m away from the penguins. They would sometimes come towards us, and we’d have to back off. As a rule, I made sure I was further than this – but it was crazy to get so close to these wild animals.

I really wanted a photo of a penguin with an iceberg behind it. With 90 people, excluding guides, on a small island, getting a photo without other people in it can be tricky enough. So I waited for the others to move to the next spot, and then tried to get some shots of the penguins.

Then a penguin walked straight between myself and a really beautiful iceberg. Of my more than 1000 penguin photos, the above is my favourite.

But alas, all good things come to an end. Soon we found ourselves back on the MV Ushuaia. It was snowing, but the crew were making a special meal for us outside. The crew on this ship is absolutely amazing!

Our afternoon activity was a Zodiac cruise around Charlotte Bay – which is part of the Antarctic Peninsula, so the continent proper. It isn’t a spot suitable for landing this time of the year, due to the amount of ice. The group was broken into two halves. Group A would go first this time, while group B (which I was in) would go first next time.

Group A got close to some more whales, while the rest of us saw them from the ship. We were sad to have missed this – but luckily this wasn’t the last time we’d see them on the trip.

The Zodiac cruise was around a large iceberg right by the ship. It was a fascinating shape, with a large block of ice protruding on the side. It also had a huge crevasse as well, which was bright blue.

We had Pablo as our Zodiac driver for the cruise. He has been doing this for a very long time, and explained some specifics about different ice types. He then pulled a block of black ice out of the water. It’s called this due to the lack of oxygen bubbles making it practically invisible in the water, especially at night. Naturally I broke off a piece and tasted it – how often does one hold a block of ice that’s more than 1000 years old! Ok, yes, as expected, it tasted exactly like regular ice.

After that, we relocated to Portal Point. This would be our first landing on the continent proper. Conditions looked good, so we were confident that it would proceed as the guides went out to scout the landing.

Continent selfie with Martin the guide and photographer.

Group selfie – while it had been debatable whether Rivu and Conall had their 7th continent when we first landed, it was indisputable now. One aspect I found interesting was that a flag commemorating the 7th continent had suddenly surfaced. While the general consensus had been that the South Shetland Islands do count, it was clear that the general feeling was that this wasn’t actually the case. Either way, it didn’t matter – we were actually standing on the continent this time!

I had wanted to go for a run on the continent. You have to wear the decontaminated rubber boots, and can’t change shoes on the continent – so I would be forced to run on uneven ground, with variable strength, in shoes not suited for running. My attempt at running lasted all of 140m, before I ran into the rest of the group and decided to take that as a good enough.

Before getting a photo with the flag, I noted that it says “7th continent”, not “my 7th continent” – as it was only my 5th. At the time of writing, I still need to visit North America and Australia/Oceania. The “does New Zealand count” question may become relevant later, we’ll see.

Naturally – we had to get a group shot with everyone on the continent:

Two landings, one on the continent itself, plus a Zodiac cruise – plenty of penguins and whales, more icebergs than one could count. What an incredible day!

At dinner, we agreed – if there was an emergency and we had to return home tomorrow, it would be a worthwhile trip. Little did we know that the best was still to come…