In sight of Antarctica -- South Shetland Islands. Half Moon Bay. Saturday. February 9

 Landing on Half Moon Island.  Despite nervousness about zodiac and cold, everything went very smoothly.  Saw chinstrap penguins and seals.  Also whale bones.  Scenic cruising past iceberg A57A.  Truly amazing!  

·        Wake up to islands outside our window.  Majestic.  A bit nervous too.  This is it!

·        Our group is 2nd to go out, which I’m glad about because it gives us chance to sleep in (first group is 8am) and to fuss about it all.  We learn over time that a 10am departure with a 945 call means that you have to have started suiting up at 930.  Pulling boots on is a challenge.  I fuss like crazy with my things as we're waiting in Zodiac line.  Really it is no colder than a cold day in Chicago.  At some point on land I open up my jacket.

·        We’re on the last Zodiac to go to shore with Rose and Bob.  When you get to land you’re told where you can go.  We start to the right since it is less people populated.  See seals and etc.  Wary about the seals since they can be dangerous -- later hear that one had feigned a move.  Then we go to the left.  Lots of penguins.  Conscious of how they limit you to 1 hour and want to be sure we get our fair share since we were on last zodiac.  To get off zodiac we’d needed to go feet into water.  To get back in we need to scrub boots on guanomatic!

·        After dinner we come up to iceberg A57a which can be tracked by satellite.  Everyone knows that this is the evening’s entertainment.  We can remember walking up the stairwell from our room, at level 8 looking out the window, and thinking WOW.  A57a is more than 12 miles long and 5 miles wide, and separated from the Filchner- Ronne Ice Shelf, 960 nautical miles away, in 2008.  Captain later says he tried to come up to it at sunset and he hoped he could position ship for shadow to be projected onto iceberg.