February 24th Rest for Chris, Climbing for Al

Position: Errera Channel, 64 45.4' South 62 39.2' West

Chris here: Unfortunately yesterday I must have strained something in my
left knee as when I woke up this morning I felt that a big day in the hills
was beyond the capabilities of my knee. Crossing crevasses and walking up
glaciers roped up is not really conducive to just popping back the yacht
after and hour. This would be seriously inconvenient for the other climbers
on the rope. Hopefully a day of rest will allow me to rejoin the climbing
expeditions tomorrow.

Yesterday's time watching penguins and seals was fantastic. Sitting quietly
for a few moments on a rock the penguins ignored you completely and went
about their everyday business. I saw a parent penguin feeding it's fluffy chick "fish soup". The pair were constantly hassled by two Skuas who seemed intent on distracting the parent to regurgitate in their direction and get a
free meal. Both the parent and chick had to chase away the cheeky scavengers. Once dinner was over the parent started to move away from the
chick but was chased and "body checked" by the chick in an effort to get extra helpings. Skuas ugly, aggressive, picking on weak penguin chicks and they also act as the "refuse executives" of the Antarctic Peninsula, scavenging and fearlessly trying to pinch anything they think may be food.
While we were preparing some crevasse rescue lessons, Skuas were pecking at climbing ropes, trying to pick up ice axes (really!) and investigating our ruck sacks. This is all within 3 meters of a group of climbers - perhaps
they are privy to the protocols on avoiding disturbing wildlife and have decided that they can take advantage of our powerlessness. Having said that I can't imagine what a skua would want with an climbing rope or ice axe.

As Alan has already said the very short walk to the top of Cuverville Island provided great views all around. Several of us had planned to camp on the snow of Cuverville. This would have been a bit like camping in the back garden as dinner would have been on the Evohe. The prospect of a little bit of adventure was still attractive - watching an Antarctic sunset from the
tent would have been great. Perhaps not so great would have been being kept awake by penguins and hungry chicks searching for each other in the nearby rookery. However it was decided that in view of the probable early start and to minimise any impact on the nearby penguin rookery we would defer this until another night - not so close to a rookery.

During the night we were anchored in what became apparent was a strong current as we had several collisions with icebergs. As all the cabins are on the waterline an iceberg hitting and then scraping down the side of the yacht is a big and scary noise. This has happened several nights over the course of the voyage but last night was the loudest and most disturbing of
all. Over breakfast Steve, our skipper, was very relaxed about the whole event and as it turns out justifiably - there was not even a scratch in the paintwork despite all the crashing and scraping.I have spent today, resting my knee having, first thing this morning, sought
the expert medical opinion of Mark, our resident vet, which fortunately coincided with the advice of Tamsin, one of our chefs and fully qualified physiotherapist. Andrew and Nicky also decided not to climb today so we have all had a relaxing day, chatting and watching videos of Antarctica.

Time spent on deck watching penguins "porpoising" past on their way to finding lunch for their chicks, seeing seals swimming around and Minke whales which come to investigate the yacht whenever the engines or generator were started was a rewarding way to pass the time.