Return to Ushuaia

 All good things must come to an end.  Approach to Ushuaia.

And docked.

Before heading the airport, we had a little bit of touring in Tierra del Fuego National Park where we got to see the END OF THE ROAD as well as some pretty scenery.

The question I am asked most frequently was what made the greatest impression on me.  Of course, the penguins.  But the two things that struck me the most was the kindness of Jim Preston in loaning me a camera and the first day when we had a very close encounter with a leopard seal.

Jim's camera is an older version of mine, so the night he loaned it to me, I went around the ship to try it out and get used to the slightly different controls. Turns out I had one control set completely wrong, and so I ended up with a lot of black photos.  Fortunately, I figured this out before I set out the next day. But I did get this rather cool photo.

Remember the leopard seal that jumped up on our zodiac and we were told to get off the side and kneel on the floor of the zodiac and pull our hands in.  That seal jumped up RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.  Here's the out-of-focus picture I had to take quickly, just to give you a sense of how close.

In addition to Jim the photographer subject matter expert, Ponant hires its own professional photographer and videographer.  Here is the picture they got just as the seal went back into the water. You can see the disturbed water in front of me.

There will be one more post after this one covering my first two days in Bariloche. But this is it for Antarctica posts.  Hope you've enjoyed them!