Penguins and seals and whales oh my!
Penguins and seals and whales oh my!
By Blog.Admin
It is hard to even begin to describe all that we experienced in the last 24 hours. The morning started off with a two-hour trip to Trinity Island, divided into a one-hour Zodiac cruise around Mikkelson Harbour followed by a one hour on land.
The harbour was so beautiful, filled with majestic icebergs and the occasional swimming penguin. We got to see a big chunk of snow and ice fall off of an iceberg--it makes quite a dramatic sound!
On shore, we visited a Gentoo penguin rookery. One thing we learned about penguins today is that if you catch yourself downwind from a group of nesting penguins, you'll smell them before your see them. But they are so much fun to watch. You can never get enough of it. We saw penguins swimming, waddling, sliding on their bellies, and stealing small stones from one another to build their nests. And in the middle of it all was a very large, very relaxed Weddell seal.
The original plan was to make our first landing on the continent later that afternoon. But ice and weather made it too dangerous to land the Zodiacs ashore. But did we ever make up for it. We spent an hour or so on another Zodiac cruise. And then the Humpback whales showed up.
Before our attempted landing, we had followed a group of whales from aboard the ship. But that could never have prepared us for what we would experience in a cove just off of the Antarctic peninsula. The whales came so close to the boats that several times we were sprayed when they came to the surface to blow. We were literally no more than twenty feet away from them at times. It was amazing.
Tomorrow promises to be another day packed full of adventure. We can't wait to see what happens next!