I have finally set foot on my seventh continent! Antarctica – I have accomplished the ultimate dream on my bucket list and landed on Paulet Island, in the Weddell Sea, and the Antarctic Peninsular! 
This island is home to about 100,000 pairs of Adele penguins who share their space with nesting shags and the southern giant petrels. It is the Adelies that greet us first as we land on this volcanic island. There are penguins as far as my eye can see and further! Their simple black and white colouring stands out against the starkness of the white landscape. 
The sheer numbers of penguins on the island takes my breath away, as does the sound and smell of hundreds of breeding penguins. Adelies were named by the French explorer d”Urville, who named them after his wife! 
The island is covered in snow which reaches right down to the waters edge, a truly unique experience for a girl who grew up on a tropical island beach and who now lives within reach of the equally glorious white sand beaches of Sydney!
This island was first discovered by the Scotsman Ross’ expedition in the 1800s. Despite the snow we have an option to do a bit of hiking and to go in search of a bit of history. My first stop is at the ruins of a hut built by Nordenskjold’s men, part of a Swedish expedition to explore Antarctica. His ship the Antarctic, skippered by Carl Larson was crushed by Weddell sea ice, and sank just 40 km from this island in the early 1900s. 
His men sledged for 16 days to reach Paulet and built a stone hut where they took shelter. All but one survived the winter and today the ruins of the hut which is now occupied by Adelies’ stand as testament to the bravery and courage of those early explorers. 
Our historian Shane, shares the story of this expedition as part of our lecture series on board ship. The survival of those aboard is an epic, so I will summarise it here. Nordenskjold gets off the ship with a small party to winter at Snow Hill and make observations. The Antarctic returns to pick up the party, but is unable to cross Antarctic Sound due to heavy ice. They drop off 3 men at Hope Bay, to hike over 300km to Snow Hill and inform the party, the Antarctic is on its way. The ship makes its way around the Peninsular but of course it eventually sinks! The men at Hope Bay are unable to hike to Snow Hill as their route is blocked by open water and winter in a small hut. Months later, both groups venture from their wintering huts and meet serendipitously in a place now called Cape Wel Met! Ironically, Larson who was skippering the Antarctic, goes out in a small boat in search of the trio he dropped of at Hope Bay and is also reunited with both parties shortly after and just a few hours before they are found by an Argentinean search party! How’s that for luck?
I walk as far as the frozen lake and stay there awhile to observe the behaviour of the penguins. 
The Adelies are having a blast, ‘skiing’ 
and ‘skating’ down the icy slopes of the mountains here. Summer is the breeding season and seeing the penguins sitting on their chicks and regurgitating their food so they can feed is a real delight.
I walk along the beach to the shag colony, nesting along the hill side here. 
Along the way I realise the penguin story is not all happy. Many chicks will die, from the 
wet & cold. In fact there is a 60% mortality rate amongst these young chicks. Food is not fed to unhealthy chicks. Chicks who are abandoned due to a parent being eaten at sea will 
also perish. The chicks are also very much part of the food chain here and many will lose their lives to birds who prey on the abandoned and weak chicks.
My hands and feet are slowly going numb as the 
coldness of the day starts to penetrate through my wellies and gloves. I’ve just been here a little over one hour. As I make my way back to the zodiacs I think about Nordenskjold’s men and wonder how they survived a winter out here! For me, it’s time for my favourite bar drink, an Espresso Chocolate with a double shot of milk! Just perfect for a wintery summers day in Antarctica!
As I sip my hot chocolate in the bar, the excited shouts of my fellow passengers draws my attention to what’s going on outside. We have spotted our first leopard seal! I watch this reptilian creature and top predator of these parts float past our ship and snap a few pictures before he glides into the Southern Ocean and disappears from view! 
“..Now the name disappears from sight. Now the water is up to the rail, and with a rattle, the sea and bits of ice rush in over her deck. That sound I can never forget, however long I may live..the streamer, with the name Antarctic disappears in the waves. The bow-sprit – the last mast top – She is gone!”
Carl Scottsberg, Feb 12, 1903
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