A really wet, cold day today, so we’ve been in the boat for most of it. Mike has had an ear infection for two weeks and been having hearing difficulties, so we returned to Grytviken so that he could see their doctor, and the rest of us visited the Carrs and the museum. The yacht Northanger was in port, so we also pillaged their software library in order to repair Jerome’s Iridium email connection and thus give us access to weather reports. For the night we’re back at Leith Harbour whaling station, which is a bit like returning to Auschwitz — I’m glad to have seen it once, but would rather not have to be here again; however it’s a good anchorage and calm enough to allow Kathy to prepare a big dinner for Shane’s twenty-sixth birthday.
The trip is sadly winding down, so we’ve only got a few more days before starting the crossing back to the Falklands. Thinking back on the past few weeks, there have been a lot of memorable moments — wrestling with giant petrels, being chased by elephant seals, having a grey-headed albatross crash land practically on top of me, Micky radioing in for beers, Mike swimming with penguins in Gold Harbour, sitting on a mountainside amidst the vastness on top of the Phillipi Glacier, and tons of others. Slightly fewer cloudy days might have improved the trip, but it was still a once-in-a-lifetime experience.