Today was the Antarctic Olympics! The white and orange (now mostly white under the snow) domed tent houses the Chilean sports hall and the Olympics are held there every year, usually much earlier, in September, so we were especially lucky to be here to witness such a huge celebration. The Olympics comprises volleyball, mini-football, table tennis, badminton, billiards and poker. Yes, Bulat did explain there are a few subtle differences between Antarctic and conventional Olympics when I asked him to repeat the last sport, not sure if I had misunderstood. There was no mention of Olympic snowball fights or Olympic snowmen building but of course, sensibly, all the activities are carried out inside. I also wondered if Dirk was going to represent Germany and Steve and I would comprise Team GB – we were getting mean at the ping pong last night – though I think still far off the renowned Chinese standard. Instead we were better placed as the international visiting spectators.
The Olympic teams represent Russia (Bellingshausen base), Chile (who have two teams – Escudero base, the hosts, and the military base), Uruguay (Artiga base) and China (Great Wall base). South Korea (King Sejon base) was not able to attend due to the raging storm outside which made crossing the cove impossible – so instead a last minute team was made up of members of the Villa de Estrellas population and some additional Chilean military personal instead. It is too far for Argentina (Jubany base) to join in and even further for other bases on the island – Poland (Artowski), Peru (Macchu Picchu) and Brazil. I was interested to hear Brazil, on the Keller peninsular inside Admiralty Bay, occupies what was once the British base on King George Island.
After an exciting formal opening ceremony with all the teams lining up for the opening song and Chilean dancing display the games began! The hall was filled with about 50 members of the Fildes Peninsular, everyone introducing themselves and the hall filled with chatter from all nations. We watched volleyball and mini-football but this was also a networking occasion and we have now met the base commanders from all the nearby bases, including the Chinese commander who has invited us to the Great Wall base for the ping pong and badminton Olympics in a couple of days time, and also Carlos, one of the two teachers from the Villa de las Estrellas school, who has invited us to visit the school tomorrow.
After dinner (incuding the most amazing chocolate chip fudge cake for desert!) we headed to the Chilean games building to support our Russian hosts in the first rounds of billiards and poker. They had been hopeful for a volleyball win earlier in the day but were beaten by Chile but the evening ended well with them winning both the billiards and poker.
Aside from the Olympics, today was also exciting for me in terms of wildlife. Though our journey to Jubany had been further delayed by the return of the sea ice with last nights blizzard, the morning was sunny with blue skies and the sea ice had, much to my delight, brought us some new visitors in the form of Weddell seals and chinstrap penguins.