The animal that was most reliably ubiquitous on the cruise was Homo sapiens antarctica, which when not aboard Minerva always wore its summer plumage. The photos of all of us passengers – “pax” in the crew’s lingo – crack me up. We look so un-Antarctically bright. But we were mostly warm and pretty dry!

(The guy in the black parka is Seb, one of our naturalist guides, who was ex-Royal Navy, a great historian of the Antarctic, and hilarious.)


L: A gaggle of pax on the prow of Minerva
as she aimed at the Lemaire Channel (6:30 a.m.)
R: A boatful of pax in the iceberg garden in the French Passage (noon).
