Paradise Bay

We crossed through the ends of the Lemaire Channel and passed into Paradise Bay.

In the bay there is the Brown Argentine research station. Chile has the Yelcho station just around the point, as they both claim the entire peninsula and have to keep an eye on each other. When we pulled in the bay, the winds dropped from 25-30 knots to absolutely nothing and the water flattened out to glass. Our first stop was to land at the Brown station, which is tiny, seasonal, and closed up for the winter.

Aside from the few Gentoo Penguins that also call the station home, the main attraction is to climb the 60m tall hill just behind it for a view of Paradise Bay. It was a bit of work, but well worth the view.

After getting some great pictures and panoramas from the top, it was time for the easy way to the bottom, sliding back down.

 

We got down to the landing spot and just as we got there, a Minke Whale surfaced right amongst the kayakers.

We took our turn for a zodiac cruise amongst the ice and the first thing we saw was a large female Leopard Seal lounging on an ice flow.

Leopard Seals have such amazing colouration and patterns on them. They are such beautiful creatures, and so powerful, intelligent, and curious. This was a large female, about 4m long.

We headed out into a back bay that had an incredible view.

After taking a few pictures we cruised around the bay where we found three Crabeater Seals that were more curious and interested in investigating us than we were in them.

Mike got some incredible GoPro footage of them investigating us underwater too. His hand got a little cold, but it was well worth it. On our way back to the ship we passed some nests of Blue Eyed Shags before getting close to the M/S Expedition where there was a Leopard Seal playing amongst the zodiacs. It is one thing to see one lounged on an ice flow, something completely different to see them in open water swimming and lunging above the surface.

 

We got onboard the ship rather reluctantly after another amazing day. Paradise Bay for us was just paradise.