Arriving at Palmer

Though the antics of the Drake slowed us down enough that our trip to Palmer ended up being five days long rather than four, eventually we reached the peninsula of Antarctica, the waters calmed, and nature rewarded us in spades for what we had just endured. Our first morning along the peninsula, there was spectacular pancake ice surrounding the ship.

It was really magical, watching and listening to the ship move through it.

As the pancake ice started to break up...

...we started to see some beautiful ice bergs.

It was a bit of a bummer that we'd been delayed, because as a consequence, we went through what is supposed to be the most scenic part of the trip during the dead of night, when we wouldn't have been able to see anything even if we'd stayed up for it.

But when we all did get up for sunrise the next morning, we were gifted with an absolutely gorgeous morning and approach to Palmer.

I know I keep using the word magical, but it was so magical! Can you spot the penguin scuttling away from the ship in this video?

We were all just rapt.

And then there it was, tucked onto a little hill above the sea ice: Palmer Station.

Till now, I'd only seen it in photos, and had been trying to study its layout from an arial photo I got during training in Denver (clearly taken later in the summer when the sea ice was gone and the station was much less snowy).

In person, just waking up from its winter slumber, with a glacier reaching down towards it, the station looked impossibly tiny and cozy.

And the 20-person winter-crew was standing on shore, welcoming us in and waiting to grab the ship's lines and end their five-month isolation.