Antarctica December 2011

Our first glimpse of Antarctica at 4am in the morning.  This is Elephant Island known for it's elephant seals.  

Open water for a couple more hours but the icebergs are fantastic.

This trip was a photographers dream.  The sky was really this blue.

Really, REALLY big chunks of ice

Zoom in on this one and count the Adelie penguins.  They eat krill (shrimp) so the poop is pink.  They are nesting on these bare rocks.

Penguins EVERYWHERE you look

Almost as many icebergs as penguins

It was gorgeous, sunny weather for most of three days, but every few hours there would be a patch of clouds.  The terrain took on a much colder and desolate look.

With no buildings to reference size, it is hard to understand scale.  These mountains could be more than a thousand feet high and the ice at the waters edge could easily be 100 ft tall.

The blue is indicative of newly exposed ice.  The white has been exposed to air longer.

We saw lots of leopard seals, crab eater seals, and a few whales. The best whale story was when 5 Orcas saw a seal on a berg and tried to jump up and scare the seal into the water.  Smart seal, it stayed safely on the berg.

Looking straight down on the berg, you can see it is much bigger under water.  Actually only 10% of the berg is above the water line.

 And then the wind died and the water was smooth as glass making the Antarctic Sound a reflecting pond.

Here is a zodiak heading to the Chilean Research Station.

It is 11pm and the sun is going down for the day.  It will be back up before I am.

This was a fascinating area.  There were only a few tall mountains, but there were low rocks in the water and the snow built up on them in perfect mounds. 

The clouds start forming, the wind picks up.

As we sail away, we see the huge icefield and the mountains being covered with clouds.

The storm arrived as we leave Antarctica.  Ship personell came into our room to put aluminum shutters on the inside of our windows.  We are not even on the bottom floor, but toward the front and the waves pounded the ship.  The shutters are to protect us if the water breaks through the window.  We had gale force  10 winds and 35 ft seas for most of two days.