Antarctica! 

We started the day with magnificent sights of Antarctica! The seas were full of floating sea-ice and ice-bergs, the skies were bright blue and we could see magnificent snow-covered mountains on the horizon! WOOHOO! ANTARCTICA BABY!
to make up for the loss of the first landing, Shelli and Captain Jeremy decided to give us a little Zodiac ride in Antarctic waters at a sheltered place called Charlotte bay.We again rushed to our rooms and geared up and came down to the mud room to put on our muck boots and lifejackets and then line up to board the Zodiacs.
​What a feeling it was to see those frigid ice-covered waters! Mindblowing!
The water was full of the most amazing ice - free-floating sea ice, and beautiful ice-bergs. They were in various colours - brilliant white, an intoxicating blue and green, flat white, pebbled white, dirty muddy white…so many shades of white!
The land was snow-covered - a magnificent blinding-white snow, with some black rocks sticking out! A Himalaya in the seas!
We saw our first penguins - in their natural environment, I mean. We had seen that solo Chinstrap yesterday, but he was on a rocky, gravelly beach. Here we saw a few Gentoo penguins on an ice floe!
We saw a Crab-eater seal chilling out an ice-floe! Nobody can chill like a seal! He just lies there and looks so peaceful and at one with the landscape!
We proceeded from Charlotte Bay to Portal point, which was the site of our next landing - which would be now the first Antarctic landing - since the morning one had come a cropper.
Well - OK then…Let’s do the landing! WOOHOO!
We again did the gearing up and mudroom thing, and piled on the Zodiacs and came to the shore.

AND THIS WAS IT! THIS WAS IT!
​‘Welcome to the continent of Antarctica, ladies and gentlemen.’ Shelli said to us.
I got off the Zodiac and looked in wonderment at the disembarking party - Shelli and 4 other guys. They certainly didn’t have an easy job! They were standing in waist-freezing Antarctic water and pulling the inflatable Zodiacs boats on to the shore to allow passengers to get off - and it looked like pretty hard work! They would be doing it for hours on end- getting 160 people on and off the shore!
A couple of Gentoo penguins watched us curiously for a bit and then lost interest and jumped into the sea and swam off.
Portal point was covered with snow - deepish snow - and I had a tough time walking through it! I was gasping and wheezing by the time I walked just a few steps! I huffed and puffed my way to the viewpoint and saw the Ocean Victory anchored out there - what a sight!
I HAD FINALLY DONE IT!
I WAS ON MY SEVENTH CONTINENT!
Here we had the first proposal of the trip!
Someone had got back a chunk of glacier ice - and installed it at the bar! It was fresh water - apparently, the process of freezing removes the salt from sea water, and make the ice safe to drink! The bartender was chipping off bits of the ice and using 1000-year old glacier chunks in the drinks. Why bother with 20-year-old scotch, when you can have 1000-year-old ice?
I immediately had a drink with that ice - what a unique drink!