Finality…

Another morning awoken by the ever popular voice of Peter saying Inspire Team, Inspire Team, Inspire Team. This morning is Easter so Happy Easter all! After traveling all night, we arrived at Deception Island, the active volcano that is full of water. We did a morning landing and it had penguins and seals all around. While on land, we visited the remains of an old whaling station. Talking about sustainability, the whalers built buildings, fuel tanks and huge tanks to put the whale oil in. The whalers then went crazy and completely killed all the whales. After that, they left many buildings, tanks, trash behind.

After lunch, we visited Half Moon Island. This place had penguins, most chinstrap penguins and fur seals all over it. It was amazing watching these penguins climb all over the rocks.

When everyone returned from the visit on land, everyone was called to the upper deck of the ship. Jumper had the bell rang 3 times for Antarctica, 3 times for the ship, Ushuaia and 3 times for 2041. Then, we all did hip, hip, hooray 3 times and the Captain blew the ship’s horn 1 long time to signal our official departure from Antarctica. Next, Robert gave a speech thanking each of us for being with him on this expedition. Lastly, Robert said his real message is……..(he stood there for a moment of silence to listen to Antarctica). It was powerful.

After dinner, the group had a slide show about David. He had passionately taken so many pictures of Antarctica and of us that we wanted to show him the pictures we had of him. We owe him a huge THANK YOU, because he saw a lot of Antarctica through a camera lens, instead of truly experiencing it.

We have heard rumors the last 2 days that the Drake Passage crossing is going to be a very rough one. Bring it on; it will be an amazing end to an amazing expedition.

At 8:45 PM, we officially hit the Drake Passage. The rocking began immediately and will only get worse. I think it will be rock-a-bye James soon………………..