The Stella Australis cruised overnight to the Canal Whiteside and Seno Almirantazgo to the Ainsworth Bay where Glacier Marinelli calves. We got a brief period of cell reception late at night as we passed within view of Porvenir, then we would have only a couple more similarly brief periods of reception for the remainder of the cruise.
We boarded zodiac boats to go ashore for a hike. Shortly after landing and shedding our life jackets a red fox approached our group. It obviously did not recognize humans as a threat, and seemed curious, especially about the collection of life jackets. Unfortunately red foxes are one of the 100 Worst Invasive Species, and it should not be here in South America.
We left after a few minutes to try to keep the fox unaccustomed to people and began a short hike through the dense but mostly low brush. Because only this cruise operator visits this site every few days during the seasonable parts of the year, the trail was quite narrow. And because it rains a lot and glacial silt is fine, it was muddy in many places. There were a lot of chaura berries and it was amazing to see how productive they were. While lacking a strong flavor, these berries must be nutritious, but no birds or animals seemed to be eating them.
We got some beautiful views of the mountains and glacier from the top of the hill.
The hill was not all moraine - some of it was sculpted rock.
Our guide pointed out how there were trees on one side of the top of the hill that looked like they had been there forever, while the side closer to the Marinelli glacier was primarily bushes with a few young trees interspersed. This suggests that the glacier, now two miles or more across the water and up the valley, had been covering this side of the hill within the last fifty to eighty years.
Once back onboard the cruise ship we had lunch while under way to our next destination, the Tucker Islets. We boarded the zodiacs again and circled one of the islets to see penguins.
The penguins remaining here were parents who did not molt while caring for the chicks they would have hatched in the little burrow nests in the grass above the beaches here. (Penguins need a low-slope beach since they cannot fly up to nesting sites.) While most of the other penguins had left already, those remaining need to spend a couple weeks here molting, and then they can begin catching up with their mates and chicks on their seasonal journey.
On the other side of the island cormorants create very precarious looking nests in the small cliffs.
We saw some whales not long after the Stella Australis got underway.
Afterwards we took an engine room tour. Someone in engineering is a minions fan!
The Stella Australis has a free bar that is open most of the day and late into the night, and a small, self-serve, refrigerator behind the bar with beer and sodas.
The beer is named after the nearby Cueva del Milodón Natural Monument where Milodon (giant sloth) remains were found.