The days are governed by skies, wind, ice and yet another splendid meal. A stunning clear morning is prime time for zodiac cruises around a glacier-rimmed bay,

Photo by Stetson Glines

past see-through arches carved in blue ice and confetti-like cubes strewn across the water. An unexpected apparition appears on the horizon: a Viking boat manned by two spike-helmeted Hagars. Patrik, the Swedish hotel manager, has arrived to serve us a surprise potion of hot chocolate, laced with a choice of schnapps or whiskey.

The fine weather continues; by afternoon, the temps have reached the 40s – too warm even for our fake-fur-lined parkas. Down-style jackets offer enough warmth for an hour of kayaking around the windless bay, trying to catch a photo of porpoising penguins and going close as we dare to the cerulean berg that oddly resembles the Grand Canyon. There’s time still for a visit to an old whaling station, long commandeered by wildlife. Gentoo penguins march along paths in the snow

Weddell seal, by Stetson Glines

from rookery to sea. The occasional skua lands in a rookery, trying to snag an egg. The penguins squawk madly and close ranks. A pod of Weddell seals snooze near the coast.

This fine afternoon, our expedition leader decides, is the perfect opportunity for the polar plunge. This is exactly what it sounds like – a leap into the frigid sea. The adventurous and foolish gather in the mud room – our usual staging place for Zodiac tours and shore visits – but this time without any clothing heavier than bathrobes. The appropriate attire for a plunge is a matter of individual choice; some are in shorts and Ts, others in bathing suits. The previous cruise, we learn, a guest has gone into the water in his tighty whities … a vision alarming enough to cause staff amazement weeks later.

The mud room has turned into a dance party of sorts. Patrik, the hotel manager, has revved up the tunes. The line to the kayaking platform from which we will plunge moves quickly, leaving little time for second thoughts. Down the steps, off the edge, into the sea – YOW! – and you’re quickly pulled out, then wrapped in a towel by the ship’s doctor, who stays close at hand.

Unlike the usual cold-weather swim when the water is warmer than air, in this case the water is at 30 degrees, with the air somewhat warmer. A shot of schnapps resets the circulation.

Our morning goal is the Lemaire Channel, a dramatic narrow passage seven miles long and one mile wide. It’s a fine day, warm (by these standards, anyway) and windless, lenticular  clouds spinning in the blue sky like alien ships. The ice crunches against our bow as our sturdy ship pushes through the pack ice, past penguins hanging out on the floes like some cartoon scene. “It’s beyond,” says Berryhil, a fellow traveler, using the word that somehow has become the trip’s theme. “Peaceful beyond peace,” says another ice watcher.

Push as we might, the Lemaire Channel proves too clogged for navigation, and we slip back into the icy bay in search of whales and seals. A pair of humpbacks surface, rolling up but refusing to show us their flukes.

Gentoos on parade

The group before us has caught fine views of a humpback whale. By the time we clamber into our Zodiac and head out, the snow has started, and the whale has gone deep. We cruise the edges of the island, immersed in the elements.

The afternoon brings a steep, short climb to a gentoo penguin rookery. The snow is soft, causing potholing with nearly every step; to prevent penguin panic, we fill the whole back with enough snow to keep them from becoming stuck. A dozen or so birds march back and forth along a snow bank, anxious sentries uncertain whether to come or go.  Up the incline, on the rocky nesting bed, one half of a feathery couple has burrowed down into the snow, building its nest beneath the surface. Its mate – heaven knows which is the male and which is the female – continually waddles to and fro, bring rocks and sticks to line the next. The deliveries go on and on for hours.

Post-dinner, we’re afforded a chance to go shopping at the small historic outpost of Port Lockroy. It is literally possible to use a credit card – anything except American Express – to purchase book marks and mugs and sweatshirts that help support the small museum dating from the 1940s, complete with the jarred marmite and canned tomatoes that serve as relics of an isolated life.

To visit, we need to park. Setting anchor is folly in seas hundreds of meters deep. Far easier, and more engaging, to bury the ship in an ice shelf and let us human penguins waddle about the ice. Usually the ice is too long melted, but because the ice has been late this year, we’re able to crunch out on the shelf in the fading (but never quite gone) light and romp right next to the ice-hardened hull. It’s a sight none of us could have imagined … made better with the assurance that unlike the Shackleton crew, we’ll be able to climb right back on board into the comfort of duvets and hot chocolate.

The gusts are enough to throw an average sized person – or penguin – to the snow-packed ground. Your best hope is to put your back to the wind, bend your knees and tough it out.

The good news: the katabatic winds don’t last long, and we resume tromping along the packed “people paths” in search of photo opps.

We’re south now of 60 degrees – solidly in Antarctic waters and the forbidding, otherworldly surrounds that seem like some other planet. Greenland and Alaska seemed more hospitable than this jagged panorama of upthrust black stone crusted with ice; in those other rugged places, man has divined a way to co-exist with conditions. In Antarctica, only a handful of research stations operate year-round; anyone who has “overwintered” is a tough soul indeed.

As visitors aboard Lindblad Expeditions / National Geographic’s Explorer, we’re doing well just to untangle our camera gear – tomorrow we’ll carry less – pull ourselves from the occasional two-foot plunge through the snow pack (a stark reminder to  stick to the “people path”) and troop around the rookery of chinstrap penguins. We’re following the rules and keeping at 15-foot distance between us and the birds, but the birds seem to have missing the memo and occasionally waddle over to check us out.

The  black-and-white birds are as comical as a cartoon. Flippers flapping, they waddle until they belly-flop into the snow. Or better yet, the sea; its here that they fly, spinning through the ocean in watery flocks. It’s nesting season; no chicks for another week or so, but a bird still has to eat.

In this world, images don’t quite do the trick. But we’re giving this, literally a best shots, with the help of the expedition’s photo team. At each point of interest – near the Weddell seals at one end of the island, by the rookery on the ridge – a photographer answers questions and helps with camera settings while making sure none of the our fellow travelers gets too close to the birds.

We’re luck to have the landing at all, we learn. Our experienced team include a delightfully humorous German captain and an American expedition leader making her 121^st voyage here. Thanks to their long experience and careful watch of ice and wind charts, they’ve steered us to sheltered bay where the winds allow us to go ashore. We learn this at the daily briefing, where the next day’s plans have been completely rewritten by high winds and a season of tough ice.

One of the most beautiful places in Buenos Aires is also one of the most stunningly serene cemeteries in the world. And for most of us, its most notable resident is Evita — Eva Peron. Despite some recent efforts to move her remains to an estate where she would lie next to her husband-president, Evita remains memorialized in a post-life condo mausoleum of the Duarte family. It’s a beautiful place, with lots of visitors. Not a bad place to end one’s days.

The hassles of travel rarely vex me. But the grim realization is that camera and computer gear are heavier than I recalled. Weight limIts

Why we pack backups: disintegrated boots.

iare strict on our flights, leading to a last-minute airport flurry that required grabbing aump of clothes o  of my suitcase and stuffing them in a bag to carry on as a result of an inaccurate home scale.

Had we known the flight would be delayed we might have acted differently. The flight WAS delayed, by e act 12 hours (can we say somebody failed to staff according to FFA exhaustion standards) — an AA gaffe costing us a day in Buenos Aires and cab fare. We went home to sleep and would happily have re packed for less weight except AA  had or bags. Guess i be wearing all jeans and coats on the plane south to make luggage weight limit.

Traveling or at home, stuff happens. We’re on the plane, and happy to be headed to The White Continent.

Five years ago, we sailed on a Maine Windjammer out of Rockland, then stayed for a few days visiting friends. It didn’t take long before we’d bought a summer house there. Here are just a few things we love about the region.

Breakfast at Home Kitchen Café. (Should I have the Irish Bennies or the Sinnie French Toast?)

• Work by local artisans. (Among my favorites are glass by Richard Remsen, photography by Peter Ralston, pottery by George Pearlman.)
• Steamers and lobstah at any local pound.
• Watching the schooners sail past the Rockland Light.
• Wood-roasted oysters and the world’s best mac-and-cheese at Shepherd’s Pie.
• Visiting the Belted Galloways.
• The Farnsworth Art Museum (and soon, the new Center for Maine contemporary Art.
• The Monhegan Ferry.
• Hotdogs at Wassas.
• Owls Head Transportation Museum
• Hunting for bargains at Something Blue (in Rockland) and Serendipity (in Camden.)
• The homemade gnocchi at 3 Crow.
• Gazing at the sea.
• Buying hand-knit baby sweaters, seaglass earrings and other gifts at the Blue Yonder shop at the Rockland airport.
• Art films and concerts at The Strand.
• Arriving and departing on Cape Air.
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