Gerlache strait. Stoney Point (Paradise Harbour) and Neko Harbour landing

Zodiacs are readied and loaded, beginning the transfer to the shallow beach. At one point between runs, a humpback appears. We slow as it approaches, the whale arches its back and dips below the rib. We continue with our transfers.

The beach itself is small—dark igneous rocks of sizes varying from gravel to cobbles lie between rocky outcrops. No more than 10 meters back, the ice begins. Meltwater trickles from below as we follow the track, zigzagging up the slope to the top. Here, we have a vantage point to view Paradise Harbour in its entirety.

Cumulostratus clouds above us are broken as baby blue cuts through. At the horizon, the cloud cover is low and dark, creating a gradient in the sky for brilliant white mountains to slice across. The rugged glacial landscape is pied—igneous rock shows where snow is scraped back. Ice shows its blues and violet colours. The light shifts and we are dazzled by sparkling whiteness. Cloud covers the sun and again we are presented with moody greys. Glacial feet drop into still waters, small gusts race ripples across open stretches, growlers shelter the shallows, and storm petrels duck and dive between the blocks of ice, searching for plankton to feed on. Crabeater seals laze on ice floes below, a leopard seal raises a flipper as it rolls over in its sleep. In the distance, two dark specks race at steady speed across the bay. Binoculars reveal them to be two small zodiacs filled with scientists, travelling back to the small collection of buildings on the far side. This is Brown Station, an Argentinian base. It is located at a rocky promontory of the hook-shaped Coughtrey Peninsula, and it was established in 1949–50. It started operating as a year-round scientific post in 1951, but the work here had to stop in 1984 when it caught fire and part of the main facilities were destroyed. Not much later it was reconditioned and since then has become a summer base for continuing scientific research.

Terns break the looming silence with grating screeches, bombarding one another for their cargo of small fish. We feel a sudden booming in our chests as a distant glacier calves; ice tumbles like white water, waves ripple out as new growlers enter the sea.

A Weddell seal is camouflaged on the beach, we are careful to give her a wide berth as she rests. We take one last moment to drink in the scenery before returning to the ship for our well-earned lunch.

After lunch we have time for a nap or to enjoy the outside decks as the ship manoeuvres between large icebergs heading for Andvord Bay. Also discovered by Gerlache, he named it for Rolf Andvord, Belgian Consul in Christiania (Oslo) at that time. Here another landing on the continent itself was planned, at the beautiful Neko Harbour. This spot finds its name originally in the whaling factory ship Neko, which started operating in the area as long ago as the 1911/12 season.

We catch stronger wind out here in our little transit, but soon we find shelter again as the ship slides into position in Andvord Bay. We admire an impressive scenery of glacier fronts as far as the eye can see. From a distance the ice looks creamy soft as it fills the mountain tops and flows down the valleys, meeting the calm, glassy fjord ocean below. Every now and then we hear the growling sound of another piece of glacier ice breaking off, entering a new life as an iceberg drifting in the fjord. As we drive toward shore, we can already smell what meets us on the sandy beach a few minutes later. Gentoo penguin rookeries can be seen further up a snowy hill on top of some rocky outcrops, revealed by the pink penguin guano and the noisy chicks. We step ashore, avoiding the constant traffic of penguins in and out of the water on the beach, and head up the snowfield. Here we come across even more traffic jams: penguins take their time passing with their short legs and wobbly walk, sometimes taking breaks to clean their feathers. The snow is crisscrossed by penguin highways, a quite spectacular sight all coloured in with red and green snow algae, creating stripes up the snowy hill.

Up by the rookeries, we now see how the rocky outcrops and surrounding snow are covered by pink guano; even small ponds of pink can be seen in between the nests. Most of the penguins seem to have managed to raise two healthy chicks who constantly nag their parents for more food. We leave the rookeries, and eventually we make our way up to a viewpoint, a little rocky point sticking out of the snow. And what a view from here. Down to our right we watch over a glacier beautifully covered in lines of crevasses filled with blue light. Then we have the fjord lying flat and glassy, sparsely covered in ice of all different sizes. And then, Bark Europa, our ship, our home for now, elegantly blending into the landscape. Dark clouds at the horizon reveal stormy weather ahead, but for now we are enjoying the calm. We take our turns for portraits in front of this majestic scenery, only to be interrupted by a skua watching over its nest just below this rocky outcrop. Down at the beach again, we continue exploring the scenery and the penguin rookeries from a different perspective before heading back to Europa, where dinner is waiting.

Andvord Bay offers us relatively good shelter from the winds that again blow strong along the neighbouring Gerlache Strait. The plan is to use it and drift until early morning, then head for more of our adventures in Antarctica.