Panama City and Canal

The Panama Canal is a real engineering feat. Three gates on the Pacific side of the country and three on the Atlantic side with a giant man-made lake in between 26 m above sea level. This photo was taken at the Miraflores Locks, which are just outside of Panama City. As you can see, there are two lanes for the ships to use. A third one is being built, which will allow much larger vessels to pass through. It should be ready in time for the canal's centenary in 2014.

Casco Antiguo is the colonial part of the city, and is full of beautifully restored buildings. There are lots of tourists there as you can imagine.

From Casco Antiguo, you can see the city centre which is full of sky-scrapers. The canal has made Panama a much wealthier country than its neighbours. The new lane will make it even richer. They are in the process of building a Metro under the city at the moment because the traffic is terrible! I am about to jump in a cab to the airport to fly to Havana for a couple of weeks.

The most amazing football match ever!

The highlight of my trip so far was going to watch a football match in Buenos Aires, which has to be the most amazing match I have ever been to - and I have been to many! The Boca Juniors stadium is sold out. The teams enter the field, the crowd get even louder - if that is possible - and the confetti goes everywhere. This is a local derby after all, so there are a large contingent of away fans. Boca haven't lost for 33 games in the league and Independiente have lost all of their first four games this season, so are bottom of the table.

I have often wondered how the fans can see through all of those streamers. I was sitting in the third tier and they were in the second, so I will never know! Independiente score after less than one minute. Instead of a shocked quietness around the stadium, the home fans take it in their stride and get louder - they are amazing! Independiente score again only a few minutes later, and the Boca fans up the tempo again. Six minutes later Boca pull one goal back and it is game on.

However, after half an hour, Independiente score a third and their fans' wildest dreams are coming true! Boca score another goal on the stroke of half time, so go in 2-3 down at the break. My friend says he is confident that Boca can turn it around and win. Just listen to the crowd he says, they really believe in their team. I am not so sure. It would have to be a very unlucky team that scores three goals at Boca and then loses. The teams come back out for the second half and the entertainment continues... Boca equalise after 20 mins, and then take the lead with only 15 minutes to go.

With only two minutes left, I shuffle through the dancing and singing Boca supporters to take a photo of the scoreboard behind me, which shows the memorable 4-3 come-back score. And then, guess what? Independiente equalise - their supporters are now letting off red flairs into the dark night sky. Everyone around me is shocked, but then the chanting starts up again, as there are still several minutes of injury time to play. The ever-hopeful Boca fans still think there is time for a winner.

After I have shuffled back to my seat, four minutes of injury time have passed, so I am waiting for the ref to blow his final whistle, when Independiente suddenly score a famous winner with the last kick of the game!
It is a shame that I am leaving Argentina tomorrow to fly to Chile because I can't wait to go to my next football Argentine game!

Half Moon Island

On our way back to Argentina, there was time for one last stop in the South Shetland Islands. You can see some of us kayaking in front of the Argentinian base on Half Moon Island.

A fur seal barking.

This beach was absolutely packed with fur seals. All of the young bucks were practising their fighting skills, getting ready for the mating season.

Whaler's Bay, Deception Island

After spending the morning kayaking in Whaler's Bay, we took a zodiac across to the island, where a couple of fur seals were dancing around for us.

If you look closely, you will see why this type of penguin is called the Chinstrap. They all have a black marking under their chins that looks like a strap.

We were all given the chance to swim in the freezing Antarctic waters, and the more crazy of us ran in and started to swim, only to realise how cold it was. We all turned around pretty quickly and ran out again! This photo is the evidence that I was one of the crazy ones.

Jougla Point, Weinke Island

If you look closely, you will see that this is a mother and chick. The chick's new feathers are more black, whereas the mother's are a browny-black.

We found a reconstructed skeleton of a whale on this island.

A rocky outcrop of Chinstrap penguins.

Petermann Island

The landing on this island gave us chance to get up close to lots of inquisitive penguins again - like this pair of Gentoo penguins.

The Adélie penguin can be found along the entire Antarctic coast, but their numbers are dwindling due to climate change. There are a group of them behind me. You will notice that I am holding one of their eggs. Don't worry, it was just a shell - there was a big hole on the back of it, where the chick came out earlier in the season.

Four Gentoo penguins resting on their bellies with a good view of the hut and our ship.

More seals

Another kayaking trip allowed us to get close up to several seals. Here are a couple of fur seals resting on the ice. They usually eat about a tonne of krill each year.

These two are leopard seals and they love to chase the zodiac boats. They have big teeth and they eat fish and penguins.

A leopard seal at rest on the ice.

Reaching the Antarctic Circle

This photo shows when we couldn't go any further because the ice was too thick. We had to head back out towards the open sea and go around and down to the Antarctic Circle from there.

The overnight snow gave everyone a chance to throw snowballs and build various snowmen on deck.

Soon after crossing the Antarctic Circle, someone drew in the snow on the aft deck that we had passed 66.6 degrees south.

Breaking through the ice

As we got closer to the Antarctic circle, our ship had to break through thicker and thicker pack ice which was fun to watch. Sitting on one large piece of ice was an emperor penguin, which was great to see because the crew told us that they only find one about once every four years this far north!

The second photo was shot looking straight down on the bow as it cut through large floating pieces of ice.

Kayaking at Paradise Bay

We made four kayaking trips in total on this cruise. On the first one, we met a mother humpback whale with calf as can be seen. We were able to get up really close to them. They were just resting with their blow holes above the water. We went on our way after about 30 minutes to leave them in peace, but they decided to follow us around the bay!

We went kayaking through floating ice as can be seen in the second photo. This was very hard work, especially as it is impossible to stay in sync with your partner when in a twin kayak because of the ice.

We then headed back to our cruise ship as seen in the third photo.