Half Moon Caye & Greenwich Island Exploring Half Moon Caye on an Antarctica cruise

Feb 4, 2023
This morning we anchor near Half Moon Caye (Island) and disembark in zodiacs to the shoreline. We are able to admire again many fur seals, many of whom appear to be playing or vying for territory with each other. We explore the island by walking down to the other shoreline along what looks to be a ‘penguin highway’, or a broad trail and area where the penguins now love to walk. Their colony and nests are set way up high on this island, so they have quite a trek from their nests to the shore.  We return to the ship a bit early on this and sneak in a workout in the gym on the Sylvia Earle, before lunchtime. We have heard that our flights may be delayed tomorrow, but we are all crossing our fingers that this does not happen and that we can fly as planned. We see that other ships are again delayed flying down and back the last two days, so there is a bit of a lineup in front of us. But we also see that a few of them have taken off today, so we are hopeful we will fly out as planned.

After lunch, we head over to Fort Point, a tip of Greenwich Island. The expedition team heads out to see about offering a landing and quickly finds that there are simply too many fur seals on shore to do it without disturbing the wildlife, so it is shared this will be a zodiac cruise instead. We head out for our zodiac cruise and quickly find ourselves in one of the most stunning weather scenes we’ve had all week. The sun is shining, and the blues off the glacier and into the water make for magnificent photography. The cliff-covered shoreline makes for an excellent backdrop to the shots of the glaciers, and snow-covered mountains in the distance, and we are able to get up close and spot our first Elephant seal at this location. We cruise around to the north side of the point to explore a cover surrounded by glaciers plunging into the water below. As we enter, you can feel a noticeable drop in air temperature and we are able to get fairly close to the glacier for some amazing photos of it with the sun glistening off the top. It has truly been a great end to the trip and stands apart as one of my favorite zodiac cruises. We return back to the ship and hear this evening that our flight has been delayed to the evening, but that hopefully, we will be able to fly out after the wind blows some clouds out mid-day. We prepare for a day on the boat with no activities planned.