January 26 - Waterboat Point, Antarctica

Was awake most of the night, so luckily, this beautiful site presented itself at 3:30 a.m.   It was worth not sleeping!

Gonzalez Videla Base, on the Antarctic mainland's Waterboat Point in Paradise Bay, is named after Chilean President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, who in the 1940's became the first chief of state of any nation to visit Antarctica.  The station was active rom 1951-1958, and was reopened briefly in the early 1980's.  It is now an "inactive" base, with fuel and supplies in storage in the buildings for emergency use, or in vase the base were to be reactivated in the future.  Occasional summer visits are made by Chilean parties and tourists.  On the north edge of the station there is a sign identifying Waterboat Point as an official historic site under the Antarctic Treaty.  This was the place3 where the smallest ever wintering-over party (two men) spent a year and a day in 1921-1922.  The two men, Thomas Bagshawe and M.C. Lester, had been part of the British Imperial Expedition, but their particular project which involved flying a number of aircraft to the South Pole, was aborted.  Nevertheless, they decided to stay over for the winter and made their shelter in an old whaling boat they found on this site.  Their time was not wasted, however, because Bagshawe wrote the first scientific study of penguin breeding development.  And today the gents, probably descendants of the ones he studied, nest in the ruins of the whaleboat shelter.

I chose to stay aboard today (have been at this landing in 2015), so my photos are from my balcony.
The weather was beautiful today.

  



Dinner tonight with Eric in the TK Grill.  Food was good, though I ate very lightly - have hit the wall.
Eric had the Meyer lemon tart for dessert.   Believe he thought it looked better than it tasted.

                                 

Then up to my suite, hoping for a really good night's sleep, but before that could be accomplished, there were whales everywhere.   Most too far away for my camera to get clear shots, but this might give you a glimpse of what we saw.

  

The best shot I missed.   A whale breached right in front of me, a vertical push straight out of the water, two-thirds of him in mid-air, prior to creating a big splash as he landed in the sea.   Awesome!
Believe superlatives have been used a bit too much in these posts, but there aren't enough superlatives in the English language to do this region justice.

. . . and so to bed.