We visited three active research stations on the peninsula, an Argentine, British and The USA's Palmer Station where were treated to a tour and some of the best Brownies we have ever tasted. Most of a week was spent in this wonderful area enjoying the wildlife, scenery, the bergs and glaciers. One of the days was calm and sunny and the temperature got up to 50 degrees but mostly the temperatures were in the 30's. We had very little rain and all in all our weather was probably better that the average trip experiences. We also visited Deception Island that is the sea filled caldera of an ancient volcano. Here we saw, perhaps the largest colony, >200,000, of Chinstrap Penguins in the world. The ship entered the caldera through a very narrow passage called "Neptune's Bellows". The caldera used to be a whaling station and home of both Chilean and UK research stations until some recent volcanic activity necessitated abandonment. Here many of the party donned bathing suites and went 'bathing' in the Antarctic Ocean warmed by geothermal activity. The tide was out so the water only allowed reclining in the warm water and many of the bathers also dove into the ice cold water.

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