At 7.30am we were woken by our usual PA announcement from Julio, the expedition leader, who had the news that we were on course to enter the Lemaire Channel just after breakfast. The Lemaire Channel has many nicknames amongst the crew as it-s a popular spot for snap happy photographers, “The Kodak Gap� being one of the better ones. It’s easy to see why though, as you enter the glassy calm waters the reflections of the surrounding mountains are pristine, and the floating pack ice makes for some amazing shots and a fantastic experience.

With the first excitement of the day over the Zodiacs were lowered by crane back into the water for another landing, this time on Petermann Island, which is currently being inhabited by a summer camp team of three, who we said hello too and were given some “freshiesâ€? (fruit and veg) by the crew. These guys are running penguin surveys on how tourism is effecting the little blighters, and if any harm is being done at all. They’re here for 3 months and every night they sleep in these little tents in freezing temperatures. We had a wander around the island found some excellent lookout points and sat and waited for brave penguins to approach us, of which none did.

Back on the ship, and the afternoon was going to turn out to be very eventful, even though there were no more landings today. As the ship headed further south and hit the winter’s pack ice the captain pushed to see just how far south we could go. Turns out we beat the record of the season so far and got to 65.015 degrees, and at that moment Dolly and I happened to be on deck. This was the moment I’d been thinking about and waiting for, I got down on one knee, and asked her to marry me and after a short bluby/giggly pause (and slight twist of the arm), she said YES.

After an afternoon like that the icebergs floating past kind of got lost in the moment and before we knew it it was 7pm and time for dinner with our fellow passengers. We’ve made a few friends in the last few days and it was lovely to share our news with Gerard & Linda, Kath, Felix & Michelle and most of the rest of the boat and crew. In a short space of time what was a drink or two after dinner quickly turned into our lovely engagement party in Antarctica aboard the Antarctic Dream. Five bottles of champagne later, not to mention all the other concoctions we drank that night, and we both woke with the mother of all hangovers. Click here for Day 7

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