Big day out

We have been ‘driving’ parallel to the continent. Even though the temperatures are just above freezing, it feels like summer, and most of us have stripped down to one layer of clothing. The fog has cleared, and I can’t believe I am bathing in sunshine and blue sky on the bright red deck of the Aurora, with Antarctica as my background! As if to celebrate the occasion, snow petrels circled above as Adeliepenguins dived off their floating ice lounge rooms, out of the Aurora’s path and into the dark waters of the bay. Later, I saw my first emperor penguin standing alone on an ice floe. What a shock the huge, humming, bright-red steel mass of the Aurora must be to these creatures.