Christmas Day - we woke in Stanley Harbour - on a cool cloudy but brightening day. After breakfast we were taken by zodiac to shore for our last dry landing and were landed on the jetty - as we approached we saw our first antarctic fur seal basking on the end of the jetty. We immediately jumped on one of the buses and joined the 2 hour and very interesting city tour. It took us past wrecks of old ships, including the Lady Elizabeth - apparently there used to be m...

New Island is 148 miles from Stanley and has been long used as a whaling base, a sheep farm and an occasional guano collection base. It is since 1972 a nature reserve. At 0730 we disembarked by group, we are group 2, and headed to the sandy beach at Coffins Harbour, past a wreck. This our first wet landing - and the rubber boots worked well- on landing we regrouped and headed off, on an easy walk, up and over a grassy incline to the colonies of breeding rock ho...

Today was a day at sea......I was up at 6.30am and went to the gym,the motion made the cross trainer more interesting and more of a work out as the boat rolled. Enroute to breakfast the boat was moving and trying to plot a straight line along the corridor was difficult. The seas weren't large but interestingly while people get their sea-legs sick bags were strategically placed along the corridor rails! I stayed seated for breakfast not venturing to the buffet as...

Fully breakfasted we had left the hotel by 7am along with some fellow travellers headed to the city airport to join the remaining passengers our Silverseas charter flight to Ushuaia. The flight took almost 4 hours - as long as a trip to Tenerife! When we arrived we saw traveller's who had clearly just got off the incoming Siverseas trip as they were donning their distinctive red parkas. We eventually got our luggage and passed it to the ships baggage handlers wh...

Today's the longest day - but shortest in the UK. We were up on time and had enough time to have a cup of tea before we left - our driver had stayed overnight which enabled an on time departure of 4am! We arrived at the airport just before 6.30 and checked in easily - the coffee shop wasn't open but we sat in a seat as security wasn't open either. Luckily the coffee shop opened first and we had our first and much needed cafe con leche of the day. We boarded at...