I am now back on land, trying to get used to my new sea legs that are still convinced the floor should be moving! It has been a wonderful expedition, in terms of experience and the samples we managed to collect. Antarctica is known as one of the last pristine wildernesses, and the beautiful landscape was definitely proof of this. I can understand now why explorers such as Shakleton and Charcot risked their lives to discover and study the continent, and why they came back time and again.

Climate change is having an effect on Antarctica, but not as we would imagine it. The mainland is actually getting colder, but the peninsula where many of the penguins we have seen breed is getting warmer. This can have such a detrimental impact on the penguins, which is why this project is so important. Seeing Antarctica for myself has made me more aware of my actions, and I ask you all to think next time you get in your cars, or turn the heating up: is it really necessary? Small changes to our habits can really make a difference.

Now that the expedition is over, I would just like to thank you all for following our progress, and hopefully get you all excited to learn more about penguins and Antarctica. Please keep checking this blog, as I am now handing it over to Tom to keep you all updated on his progress processing all of the feathers that we collected!

I would also like to thank all of the passengers on the Clipper Adventurer, who supported us and were always curious to know how our collection was going! It was a pleasure to share this experience with you all, and I hope you all have as much affection for Antarctica as I do! And finally, I would like to thank Laurie and his staff, for all the help, without which this expedition would not have been as successful as it was.

It was our last day of landings, and we had made it back to the South Shetland Islands. This time, the seas were calmer and the wind a mere 15 mph. We managed to land safely on Half Moon Island, close to the chinstrap penguin colony. If any of you have paid attention, you will have read about our previous experience with this island; the only safe landing was on the other side of the landing, so after trekking for half an hour, we had very limited time to collect feathers. In total, we already had over seventy feathers from this colony, so this time we could work at a more leisurely pace and get some really good samples. We were also met with a bit of a surprise; the expedition team told us about a single macaroni penguin that is nearly always guaranteed to be in the same place. Snowy, the onboard ornithologist, took us immediately up there and, sure enough, he was there waiting! We were lucky enough to get a few feather samples, which we can now use to not only determine the gender, but also find out to which population of macaronis he belongs to.

We managed to find some quiet places away from the passengers to collect some more chinstrap feathers, on the opposite side to where we had previously collected. It was nice to hang out with them for a bit, but it did mean we were dodging some rather feisty fur seals!

In the afternoon, we attempted the same landing as was planned on the previous trip. This had completely failed last time due to conditions, and we were forced to land elsewhere. However, this time the weather held fair and we were able to land at Robert Point. Here, there is a colony of Chinstraps rather closer to the beach than usual for the species. We were also told that there could be nesting Gentoo penguins, so we scrambled around quickly collecting what we could from the Chinstraps before going off to explore. It was lucky that we did. Just after the last zodiac of passengers had left the ship, the weather turned, and the winds picked up to 45mph. The landing was quickly abandoned and we were all ushered back to the beach and into the zodiacs. It was not the most comfortable (or dry) ride back, but I had to feel sorry for Tom, who very bravely waited until the last zodiac, helping people to get in. It was an exciting experience for our last day in Antarctica, and shows just how inhospitable the continent can be.

Today’s first agenda was to visit a place called Port Lockroy, an old British base that has been restored and opened as a museum.

It was established in 1944, when a group of nine men were issued with sunglasses and sent on a secret mission. Obviously, they thought they were headed somewhere hot, and ended up in Antarctica!

It is now home to four British women who run the gift shop and carry out some research on the local Gentoo colony during the Antarctic summer. The quarters are not exactly plush, and rather cramped, but it sounds like a fantastic job!

We started out at Jougla Point, on the adjacent island. The groups of Gentoos were spread out, and we only had an hour onshore so we had to limit our sampling. At Port Lockroy we had the chance to do a bit of souvenir shopping, and send postcards.

We had a bit of luck, because HMS Scott was just visiting, which means that our postcards might even reach home before us! How is that for Royal Mail service!

In the afternoon, we travelled for a couple of hours down Nuemeyer Channel to Orne Harbour.

This was one site that we had visited on the previous trip, and we had actually managed to collect a good number of samples.

So after climbing up to the top of the hill (collecting a few extra feathers as we went) we were able to enjoy the view, let our hair down, and have a good old slide back down to the beach.

Today we were meant to re-visit Port Charcot and Petermann Island, which would have been good for us, because we still needed to collect some Chinstrap and Adelie feathers. However, before the ship had even entered the Lemaire Channel the plans were drastically changed.

Another ship had booked an area close to Port Charcot, and had planned to cruise around the island. This meant that the Clipper Adventurer would be unable to cruise (it is necessary to split the passengers with small islands, so that only half of the passengers are on the island, while the rest cruise).

Our amazing (and at this point rather stressed) expedition leader managed to re-organise the plans at incredible short notice, so instead of Port Charcot we visited Verdansky Station (a working, Ukranian Base). After some explaining, and translation, we were given the go ahead to collect feathers from the small colony of Gentoo penguins near the base.

It was really interesting to see a modern base, and try to imagine how difficult it must be to live in seclusion with the same group of people through the Antarctic winter. But compared to the old expeditions, and rudimentary bases, it looked rather cosy!

After looking around the base, we were taken to Wordie House, an old British base that has been refurbished and is now a museum. There were no penguins here, but it was a stark contrast to Verdansky, and had an amazing view across the bay.

In the afternoon, we all managed to make it to Petermann Island. This was a great opportunity for Tom and myself to get a few more Adelie feathers. On the last visit, we concentrated on collecting Gentoo feathers and so were unable to get many samples from the Adelies. After a couple of hours, we had collected a good number, and were a ctually able to enjoy the view (we were rather short of time last time!).

Once back on board, it was decided that we were all a bit too warm, and the -1°C water was perfect for a swim. Tom and myself have already taken part in the polar plunge on the last trip, but this meant that we couldn’t lose face and not do it again. I must be a glutton for punishment! But at least we managed to convince some of the staff to jump too!

After an early dinner, we were all treated to an evening zodiac cruise around Port Charcot. If any of you pay attention, you might remember me mentioning the rather special fact that there was a single Emperor penguin spotted at Port Charcot during the last trip. I was definitely keeping my fingers crossed that it was still in the area! But regardless, the cruise started off well.

A Minke whale could be seen surfacing close to the ship, and we saw countless numbers of leopard seals (we even had a very curious one try and bite our zodiac. It was a lovely, peaceful evening, which made the towering icebergs that surrounded us look incredible.

And after half an hour of cruising, we finally made it to the little island that the Emperor penguin was seen on last time. Against the odds, he was still there, starting to moult and looking rather sorry for himself! I cannot express how excited I was to see an Emperor…something I never imagined I would see during this expedition.

Today we visited a couple of new places, which gives us a chance to increase our sample area. Cuverville Island is home to around 5000 pairs of Gentoo penguins (this really is turning into a Gentoo study rather than a general penguin study!).

Collecting feathers has now become something of a routine, and we generally do it without really thinking about it. It’s only when I look around that I realise I am in one of the most beautiful environments in the world.

However, I was in for a bit of a surprise… I found a nice pile of freshly shed feathers, which is like hitting in the jackpot when you want clean, dry and preferably fresh feather samples! The I looked up and found out who it was that was losing feathers at such a rate.

Right in front of me was a scruffy, and rather miserable looking King penguin! King penguins usually live much further north, so to see one on the peninsula was really rare.

However, he was sat in the middle of a large nesting area, and so the other passengers were not able to get up close to him.

In the afternoon, we visited Neko Harbour, home to another group of Gentoos. This was advertised as a lovely walk, with the possibility of sliding down the slope.

I was looking forward to a bit of fun, so we managed to work our way up the cliff via the penguins, collecting feathers as we went.

At the top, with a beautiful view, we launched ourselves down the snow slide. It was pretty steep, and lots of fun! And at the bottom, we got back to work and collected feathers from the small groups of penguins by the beach.

The journey back across the Drake Passage was a little more boisterous and louder than the outward journey. This meant that many of us, me included, felt a little worse for wear, and the dining room had a few more empty chairs.

The final night is generally a big event, with the staff dressing up in shirt and tie, and cocktails in the lounge.

However, as we were losing some of the expedition team who have been amazing with their help, and usually the source of much entertainment, it was quite a heartfelt farewell.

This was a definite excuse for me to ditch the jeans and get a bit glammed up!

It has been a nice few days of rest, and given us both a chance to catch up on other work. But now we have returned to Ushuaia, lost our passengers and gained a whole boatload of new faces.

It feels a bit like the end of an era, and so it is strange to think that we have the whole experience to live again.

So far on this trip, we have had a lot of luck, and although there has been little sun, we have encountered calm waters. However, that all changed over night. The wind picked up, and the waves became a lot choppier. This meant that the ship was unable to anchor in the predetermined spot, and there had to be a quick change of plans.

Originally, we were supposed to stop at Robert Island, and the one of the Aitcho (HO) islands. Instead we stopped at an island in the South Shetlands called Half Moon Island, home to a very large colony of chinstraps. It took several attempts to find a spot to anchor where the zodiacs could be boarded, which meant we had a rather exciting trip on the staff vessel.

Because of the adverse weather conditions, we ended up beaching on the opposite side of the island, and had to trek 2km to the penguin colony. It had taken a large part of the morning to locate a good spot for the passengers, and so in the end we had only half an hour to collect feather samples (we managed to get over 70, so it was not too bad!) before we had to return to the beach.

The bad weather continued, and we were unable to visit the Aitcho Islands. Instead, we landed at Robert Point, an area that none of the expedition staff had visited before, and so were unable to say whether there were any breeding penguins there. This meant that Tom and myself had to walk around the entire area.

However, apart from some nesting skuas and giant petrels, as well as some rather bolshie terns, there were only a handful of visiting penguins. Because of the size of Robert Point, it was possible to really get away from the group and collect our thoughts. The wind was still howling when it started to snow.

After weeks of snow in London, and all the snow we’ve seen so far, you would think I would be sick of it already. But it still has a rather magical feeling for me, and provided the opportunity for some beautiful photographs.

This was actually our last landing in Antarctica for this trip (we will be staying on board the Clipper for another week though) so it is now time to head back across the Drake Passage. Once at Ushuaia, we will gain a whole new shipload of passengers, and will even lose some of the wonderful Expedition staff.

Today, as predicted, was incredibly tough! It involved an early start to allow time for all of the day’s activities. This day, although our main concern were the gentoos and adelie penguins we needed samples from, there was a lot of emphasis on the history of Antarctic exploration. We were to visit two islands in the Lehaire Passage.

The first stop was at Port Charcot, named after the French explorer of the late 19th century who led the first expedition to the Antarctic where the crew overwintered on the continent. The second, Petermann Island, was named after August Petermann, a German geographer, when it was discovered by the Dallman expedition of 1873-1874. Charcot and his team overwintered here in 1909.

Port Charcot is home to a colony of gentoo penguins, and so most of our time was taken up with collecting feather samples. The island has a very rocky terrain, and so it meant quite a lot of climbing in between breeding groups of penguins. This was a really successful morning, and we managed to collect over a hundred samples (more than enough, according to Tom!).

We also stumbled across a small group of breeding chinstrap penguins, but we did not have time to collect samples from them today. But maybe next week we will return there, and be able to add to our collection of samples.

Petermann Island is a breeding ground for both Gentoos and Adelies. However, the numbers of penguins have greatly varied over the past century. When Charcot visited the island, there were a large number of breeding adelies, and only a few gentoos.

Now, the numbers have been reversed, and gentoos are found in greater numbers. They had even started to encroach on the adelie nesting sites. For this reason, it was really important that we managed to get some really good samples from the Adelies.

They are absolutely fantastic animals; gentoos are rather sedate, and rather shy. Adelies, on the other hand, are feisty, and often tried to intimidate us!

They rather reminded me of Ricky, our little rockhopper, back at ZSL London Zoo. Unfortunately, as we thought, we were very pressed for time here. We collected a large number of feathers from the gentoo colony, as this will show if the increasing number on Petermann Island is due to successful breeding or migration.

This meant that we ran out of time, and only collected a few. But again, this gives us a group to concentrate on if we are to return on the next cruise.

Coming back to the ship, we found out that a young emperor penguin had been spotted on an ice floe! This is incredibly rare, and was a first for most of the expedition crew.

Unfortunately, we missed it, as we were too busy with work… obviously, having to concentrate our time on feather collection means we sometimes miss out on the excitement. We were, however, treated to a beautiful show by two humpback whales feeding very close to the ship!

We have finally reached the Antarctic Peninsula, and it is now time for Tom and myself to actually start working. Our first landing was at Mikkelson Harbour, on a small, unnamed island that was once an old whaling station, as well as a colony of gentoo penguins (the latter was more interesting to us!). The passengers are transported to the location via zodiac, a large, powered dingy, so to speak.

Fortunately, with the support of the expedition staff, we were allowed to be dropped off with the staff zodiac, before any of the passengers. This meant we had some time to find a good, private spot where we could get some really good samples.

Although the crew and passengers seem happy for us to pluck feathers from the birds (the most reliable way of getting our DNA samples), we really want to limit the disturbance to the passengers, especially because this is a once in a life time trip for them.

So once the passengers started wandering over to where we were collecting, we stopped catching penguins and started collecting feathers from the ground. With at least a couple of thousand birds, most of whom were nesting, it was not hard to find enough samples. Most of the breeding pairs had chicks, typically two, and seemed to be doing really well.

This is a really positive image, as the level of krill (the food source for Antarctic animals) was predicted to be very low this year. However, it is still early in the year, and the skuas spent a large amount of time harassing the parent penguins, for the opportunity to grab a chick or two.

After collecting enough samples, we even had some time to look around and take photographs. We were really lucky, as we were the only two to see a fur seal (fortunately he decided not to bother us and went back out to sea) and even an elephant seal. There was also a group of Weddel seals, completely relaxed in front of all the cameras.

We could also see the evidence of the old whaling station, with a large number of whale bones scattered around the remains of an old water boat. The sheer number of the bones was overwhelming; whaling has had such an impact on the natural beauty and wildlife of Antarctica.

A brief break for lunch (and a chance to process all of our samples and stink out our cabin with penguin stench), and we were back on the zodiacs. This time we were headed to Cierva Cove, where the is an Argentinean base, although very rarely used.

This site is completely protected due to the large amount of mosses that could be found growing on the rocks. There were also only a handful of visiting gentoo penguins, and so we were not collecting samples from here.

This meant that we could actually enjoy the views as a tourist! Among the rocks and gentoo penguins was a single chinstrap; perhaps the most photographed penguin so far!

We were also taken on a zodiac cruise around the Cove, observing the amazing icebergs, and also spotting some wildlife. Minky whales were spotted off in the distance, and we also came across a fair number of leopard seals, and a crabeater seal (by the way, they do not actually eat crabs!), sleeping on the chunks of ice.

By the end of the day, we could reflect on how productive it had been. From Tom’s point of view, we had collected samples from a group of gentoo penguins from the Antarctic Peninsula, which means he now has samples from a wide enough range of gentoos to hopefully make people pay attention to the threats of penguin extinction.

From the tourist’s point of view, we had seen a very wide range of wildlife, and had our first mainland landing.

However, tomorrow will be really hard work; two landings, both with penguin colonies (3 on the second island!) so that will be our biggest test so far.

After a very long journey (around 36 hours after leaving my house!) we finally reached Ushuaia and our boat. The Clipper Adventure is a relatively small cruise ship, with around 150 passengers.

Cruise ships such as ours are the only vessels that regularly visit the islands of the Antarctic Peninsula, and so they are one of the best (and actually cheapest!) ways of collecting data from the penguin colonies in these areas.

Leaving Ushuaia, we travelled down the Beagle Channel which made us feel rather sentimental! But were pretty preoccupied with first day safety talks to do much bird watching. By morning, we were in the Drake Passage, and there were a few less people at breakfast, feeling the effects of sea sickness.

Although the Drake Passage is infamous for its rough waves and inescapable sea sickness, we have had a rather calm passage, with very little waves, and even some clear skies and sun!

The first day at sea was taken up with lectures given to the passengers by the expedition staff, covering a range of topics such as sea birds, whales and the history of Antarctica.

This is all to prepare us for all the wildlife we might see. I, for one, was grateful to find out the different species of sea birds, as my knowledge is pretty limited!

However, the staff are still on hand to point out birds and help identify them. And with the help of Mikolaj, our biologist, I was able to see my first wandering albatross - the largest species of albatross in the world.

The second day through the Drake Passage was much quieter; we passed through the Antarctic Convergence late in the night, and so the temperature outside dropped considerably (although it was still a rather mild 1°C).

There were more lectures (this time about the seals we might encounter, the geology of the continent, and a little bit about penguins) and our first sighting of an iceberg.

This was an amazing experience; not only was the whole structure awesome in its size and appearance, but I also had my first sighting of chinstrap penguins, as well as the opportunity to see many more seabirds.

Before lunch, Tom and I were due to talk to the passengers about the project we are on the Clipper Adventure to carry out.

However, after starting his presentation, Tom was rather rudely stopped as everyone quickly exited the lounge!

A group of orcas and humpback whales had been spotted. There was also a second sighting of porpoising chinstraps, and a very friendly Skua!

Tomorrow we are due to start exploring; we will be transported to the islands by Zodiac, where we will be able to collect the feather samples we need for the project to succeed.