Lemaire Channel and Paradise Bay

As mentioned in my last post, the day that I got to spend aboard Holland America's Zaandam included cruising to parts of the peninsula I haven't seen yet, which was a really fun, beautiful experience. In the morning, we attempted a pass through the Lemaire Channel, which is supposed to be one of the most scenic experiences of the whole peninsula due to the steep walls of rock on either side of the narrow channel. Unfortunately, there was too much ice in it to actually go through (you can see the much smaller boat up ahead that was able to navigate much closer than the Zaandam was, but even they had to turn back too rather than passing through the channel. But the approach was still GORGEOUS.

This is the Legend, the private yacht you can see in the first picture, way up ahead of us in the mouth of the Lemaire Channel. It has a helicopter on deck, which the Legend's captain told the captain told the Zaandam captain was for the guests who were chartering it to use to fly up to the top of mountains that they could then snowboard down.

Also, check out these hanging glaciers--the stair-step effect that happens when a glacier is covering an extremely steep slope.

Since we couldn't get through the Lemaire Channel, we had some time on our hands and spent the afternoon in Paradise Bay, which was beautiful as its name suggests, along with the weather.

Soooooo grateful for this experience and getting to see these rare and amazing things. It's definitely one of those times when I'm pinching myself that I am actually getting PAID to be here and do and see these amazing things.