Icy Beginnings and Just Ice

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An incredible start to our Antarctic experience, penguins on ice flows, a tor, calving glaciers, ice caves, porpoising penguins, the Polish Arctowski Antarctic station with their supply ship anchored nearby, all in Admiralty Bay on King George Island in the South Shetland Islands. We were outside at 8am this morning all rugged in our Antarctic gear. I lasted about 40 minutes and the cold, 0 degrees, drove me back inside. The deck on the bow of the ship was opened up so everyone could see ahead.

We crossed 60 degrees latitude last evening so are now officially sailing in Antarctic waters. The usually treacherous Drake Passage was incredibly calm.

Our Expedition Team is giving us a running commentary on what we can see. It consists of a geologist, a biologist and a historian who have told us some very interesting tales over the last few days in preparation. The penguins on the ice floes were really cute but took some finding on my camera to zoom in as they looked like little black dots.

I haven't done the Falkland Islands entry, but will do so in the next day or two. It was Christmas Day yesterday so I had a day off!

It's now afternoon on Boxing Day and we are sailing down the Bransfield Strait towards the Antarctic Peninsula dodging icebergs as we go. We have seen some huge ones, 700 metres across. These have broken off ice sheets whereas the smaller floes have been blown off beaches, so we have been told. As the smaller ones float past you can see the proportion of the floe which is underwater. It's quite weird really looking out the windows and seeing icebergs floating past. As we are not ice-strengthened we are avoiding them like the plague as you can imagine. I'll see if I can get a map to post here so you can see exactly where we are going.

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Photos

Closeup of see the caves that develop...
... and cause calving, just like coastal erosion

Can you spot the penguins?
An example of point and shoot - the penguins were tiny dots on the distance

Look how much is underwater...
... and the beautiful colour

And another cute penguin..
... all alone on the ice

Comments

[Bronwyn Smith]

Trip
Wow! Antarctica looks amazing! The icebergs are great and nice to actually be able to see below the water line because of the clear water. You did well to stay outside for 40 minutes. Your previous entries have been interesting although the history of the countries is sad. Continue to have fun xx

[marie Cameron]

Yes I can see the penguins
Very atmospheric.