We passed quite a few research stations on this journey. Of course, there was US Palmer Station on Anvers Island to start with. We saw an abandoned British Station, a couple of Chilean and Argentinion Stations, and a few 'refuge huts' built for emergencies, when a field crew of scientists may have to shelter should they get caught in survival conditions. Some stations, especially in Paradise Bay, are built amongst penguin rookeries, and are populated by hundreds of penguins, but no or almost no humans.
One of the Chilean Stations, manned by about a handful of people does nothing but record statistics about ships or yachts entering Paradise Bay, name, size, number of people aboard, captain's name...a rather unreliable statistic, as not all ship or boats enter here. As is normal in Antarctica, cruising itineraries are at best flexible, and at worst ships don't even get through any of the access straits or canals due to ice and wind conditions.
We met a few intrepid sail boats, as well as a couple of Exploration vessels, brave souls all.l
Brown Station is occasionally a Zodiac landing destination for Antarctic tours. Tour participants get out and slide down a long snow covered culvert on the side of an adjacent glacier, like a bunch of crazy kids.
There is a little monument at the Argentine station as well, put there last year by a comrade of a scientist, who drove a snowmobile into one of the glacier crevasses - accidentally - and he and the snowmobile are still buried in there.
The wreck of the 'Explorer', a sturdy exploration vessel that got into some 'bad ice' and was damaged sufficiently for her to sink a couple of years ago (passengers were fortunately all saved) is still at the bottom of the sea, together with a number of other shipwrecks, that have accumulated in Antarctic bays over time.
We snuggled up pretty closely to a couple of bergs, however ice pilot and captain knew how to avoid colliding with any of them....lucky us!
