The Antarctic Peninsula

We were now underway, leaving beautiful South Georgia Island behind, and making our way southwest to the Antarctic Peninsula......another 800+ nautical miles or so of open seas, with forecasts similar, if not a little worse, than what we have already experienced on the voyage........not looking forward to that, but think I have a good plan for when things get rough at sea........lights off, close the drapes, and snuggle in on the couch in wedge position.......seems to work. There is a plan to swing past Elephant Island, and land there for an excursion if possible........if you have read the Shackleton story, you will know that this island is where he set out with five of his crew, leaving the other 22 behind, in the hope of reaching South Georgia Island for help and rescue. The book is called Endurance......a great read. A new competition started this morning.......who can spot the first iceberg........has to be bigger than the ship to qualify.

I'm guessing about 50 times bigger than the ship but too late to win the contest

Elephant Island.....can't believe Shackleton covered the same distance in a twenty foot modified lifeboat with five crew, as we did over the past two days in the ship

The seas were still fairly rough when we reached Elephant Island, and although we could have taken a chance at launching the zodiacs, the shoreline where we planned to land had big waves breaking on shore, which made things totally unsafe for an excursion..........cruised the shore, took some pictures, and pressed on for bigger and better things. Someone has already won the iceberg competition........what was she doing up at 6:30am anyway?

We have adjusted our schedule to include a pre-breakfast excursion for the next two days, allowing us three/day rather than the normal two. Waking up we find ourselves in a beautiful channel with icebergs everywhere, the panoramic view of the Antarctic Peninsula off one side in the distance, and Spert Island fairly close on the other..........into the zodiacs we go for a cruise around the island........ hairy ride between the cliffs with ice close-by and some pretty big swells.........Haley was in a zodiac behind us and called off that section of the tour, but we were already there with two other boats.......a little excitement to start the day!

Back to the ship for the breakfast buffet, then up to our cabin.......walked out on the balcony, and off in the distance spotted some whales not too far away.......the captain was all over it and directed the ship towards what now appeared to be a good sized pod of killer whales........WoooHooooo. We sat and floated amongst the pod for the better part of an hour........fantastic photo op's, and our expedition team let us know that a few in the pod are definitely Type A..........I was unsure how they could determine the whale's personality traits from such a distance, but was informed that this was a size/type classification.........these were the big boys.

Hydrurga Rocks is a popular stopping spot with a good sized chinstrap penguin rookery, and the promise of seeing the weddell seal.........I am on wildlife overload by this point but loving every minute of it..........guessing I have taken a few thousand pictures so far, but the daily editing sessions with Jutta are reducing the number of keepers on the hard drive.

The weddell seal......couldn't care less that we were there

King of the Rocks

Snowy petrel

Chinstraps

Great excursion and then back to the ship to tie on the feedbag once again......lunch buffet........and just after lunch, as if on cue.......whales once again. Humpbacks this time, and a whole whack of them.......the team figured at least 40, swimming in 4-5 different groups.......they were everywhere, and seemed happy to be hanging around the ship putting on an incredible show. Hannah from the expedition team told us she wanted any good tail pictures we had for sending to an organization called Happy Whales........they track whales using photos of the tails.......the markings on the tail are like fingerprints.

Whale snot......no really, it is

Hannah sent off some tail pictures to a contact she has at Happy Whales, and he reported back very quickly that one of our whales has been spotted twice.......2013, and 2014.......in waters off the coast of Costa Rica.......very cool that we have him now all the way down under

Our last excursion of this already full day was in Cierva Cove.........zodiac cruise........Adam the crazy Swede was piloting our boat, and it wasn't long before we spotted a large seal in the distance floating on an ice floe

........zipped over to find a leopard seal having a snooze........great photos and happy he didn't decide to get any closer. I neglected to mention in the South Georgia post that a curious leopard seal had punctured three of the zodiacs during an excursion.......didn't want that to be happening here. Truly surreal when you just take a moment and look around........can't believe we are here.

Big yawn.......boring......more tourists

Spotted a couple of whales on the way back to the ship

Some glacial ice....we are claiming 10,000 years old......will be great in my whiskey later this evening

Today is our last day in Antarctica, and we are promised a landing on the actual continent, as the others have all been islands off the coast, but first we are off to just one more, Danco Island.........we get fairly deep into this bay, but then we can't go any further because of ice........into the zodiacs we go. Danco is very cool and home to a large gentoo penguin rookery.

It's a long walk down for lunch, and an even longer one coming home......good thing they eat big when in the water and don't have to make the trip daily

This could get messy.........we discovered that white poop = eating fish and the red/pink = eating krill

Two more stops to go, but this one is big........landing on the continent at the Chilean base - Videla Gonzalez Station.....aka Waterboat Point. The Chileans were most welcoming......all military guys, and even though this was a "research station", wasn't sure just how much research was going on. We were told by our team that many of these bases exist under the cover of being research stations, but all they are really doing is maintaining a presence on the continent, perhaps for some future claim to ownership.......who knows....... I passed out a bunch of Canadian Flag pins to the guys, and received a Chilean sticker for my collection in return........