As I said earlier, the zodiacs, the black rubber dinghy style boats, were key to it's actually stepping foot on Antarctica as well as close encounters with the wildlife. However before we were allowed out there were various protocols to be followed.
Firstly, as part of the onboarding prices we were invited to a "vacuum party". As part of the measures taken to prevent contamination of the Antarctic continent- introducing of non-native species for example, all of our outdoor clothing and bags that we would be taking ashore had to be mud free and cleaned of any potential seeds or other debris that could cause harm.
We were also strongly encouraged to not to wear masks (to be honest we didn't need much encouragement) as the chances of them flying away and ending up littering a penguin colony were high, so used buffs as face coverings (and warmth!). Similarly pockets were emptied of anything that could cause litter and there were stern warnings about not allowing flags (that many of us had brought from sponsors) to blow away.
After vacuuming, we had our first visit to the "mud room": the entry/exit since for the zodiacs. Here we found the "muck boots" (effectively wellies with neoprene uppers we would use as our footwear for the landings (again a way of controlling the introduction of biohazards) and also fitted our life jackets that we'd use for the zodiacs. These were the "inflate on water contact" kind so a lot less bulky than those used in the lifeboat drill! The muck boots and life jackets were then stored in our locker waiting for our first official call to the mud room for an outing. We were also shown the cleaning procedures that were needed for the boots following shore landings - first a tank lined with brushes and then a tank with a disinfectant solution to make sure that we didn't move any particulates from one site to another.
Our first trip out was a "zodiac cruise" ie no shore landing but a chance to go and see the floating ice close up. The zodiacs were craned off the side of the boat and we had to wait to be called in groups down to the mud room. I will admit that I was slightly apprehensive about the zodiacs, my most similar experience to date being the rescue dinghies used when I've capsized a sailing boat or been unable to turn around on a windsurf board. They've felt somewhat unstable and while falling off into warm Mediterranean water is one thing, I wasn't ready for the "polar plunge". Happily, the zodiacs were somewhat bigger (generally accommodating around 10 of us) and were much more stable.
The only ride where I did feel like I might be about to fall off the back was when the weather had turned whilst we were out viewing wildlife and we were haring back to the boat with reasonable speed with water being sprayed up and into the boat. I was holding onto the rope along the side and the water ended up inside my glove leaving me slighly concerned that I may lose my grip and slide off backwards although our driver Mikaela* assured me she'd not lost anyone yet!
The call to the mud room was a slight bone of contention in that we needed to have "layers, layers, layers" (to quote Jumper) to go aboard, but the ship itself was quite warm so you didn't want to be waiting around for an indeterminate length of time dressed to go - but then the call to the mud room initially came with an expectation of immediate presentation. It did get better as we started to get 15min warnings so that we had time to prepare.
* Von Koskull: I figure she knew what she was doing