This was another two-stop day, plus the camping excursion took place on Hovgaard at night. The first stop was Port Circumcision, a cove on Petermann Island. (Once you’ve stopped giggling or cringing, the name came from the fact that it was first spotted by a French expedition on the traditional day of the Feast of the Circumcision in 1909.) The island has a large colony of Gentoo penguins, an abandoned survival shelter from the 1950s, and a memorial to the 3 members of the British Antarctic Survey who died in 1982 trying to cross the sea ice to Faraday Station (now the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base). The second stop of the day was nearby Hovgaard Island for zodiac cruising. The 30 people who won the camping lottery would head ashore around 9p. The weather was supposed to be a tad colder than the previous day (2-3 C / 35-37 F) with a lot more clouds.

We had an early (6:45a) light breakfast before getting geared up. The ship arrived at the predicted time and the Minke Whales were soon called down to the Expedition Lounge, then headed off. You could start to smell the penguin guano before we even reached the shore.

Once we came ashore, we got a quick briefing on where we could/couldn’t go and picked up hiking poles. The snow was denser than at Orne Harbour the previous day and the path was easier to walk on, but if you stepped off the path to let others pass or take photos, the poles were helpful. There were two destinations – one with lots of penguins and one up a hill with a view. We started with the penguins (there was also quite a view there).

Pro tip: do not try to take an ‘almost-selfie’ with a telephoto lens. It will not go well. A couple was trying to do this (the gentleman was trying to get the lady to take a picture of him with the landscape) and neither was able to figure out why the camera wouldn’t focus. SMH.

We actually got even better penguin interactions while walking to the other destination and then back to the zodiacs. There were ‘penguin highways’ in the snow all over the area.

Back on the ship, we rested and got lunch before the ship moved on to our second stop. Just before we left Petermann Island, three whales passed by right next to the ship. It was amazing!

It took a little finagling for the ship to find a good position between Hovgaard Island, Pleneau Island, and the mainland. The afternoon cruising schedule was delayed by about a half hour. The site was less interesting than Foyn Harbor (how do you compete with a shipwreck?) but the icebergs were still beautiful and we saw playful penguins swimming around us.

Dinner was back in Aune; they had a very interesting menu from salmon pastrami (smoked salmon with pastrami spices, not something weird) to cod wrapped in prosciutto to a lingonberry/grain créme dessert that tasted a lot better than the description sounded. The ‘Plans for Tomorrow’ meeting got delayed an hour because they were still putting together a plan. We would be spending the night by Hovgaard Island because of the camping excursion, so the next stop thankfully wouldn’t be first thing in the morning (it would take a little time to go somewhere else).