Cierva Cove, Antarctica

The next day dawned grey and foggy…

… but there were some gorgeous icebergs floating by –

By the time of our Zodiac expedition, it was raining, sleeting and snowing. I wasn’t super thrilled to be sitting on a rubber boat for an hour or more in that, but I/we soldiered on and saw our first colony of Chinstrap Penguins –

They lived way up on top of a rocky island, but I was glad I had my long lens, and a few happened to be down near the shore as we motored by – (I’m sure you can figure out how they got their name)

We continued slowly touring the bay in the Zodiac…

… and marveling at pieces of ice like this:

This is probably 10,000 year old ice that had been at the bottom of a glacier, and all the air had been compressed out of it, making it so clear.

The afternoon slowly brightened and the precipitation stopped…

… so we could really enjoy our stark surroundings.

We played a little bit of peek-a-boo with the ship as we toured around the iceberg garden –

You’ll have to excuse the bit of talking in the next video, but just take in the sound of the rustling ice –

(sorry I keep reminding you about opening the post in a browser, but in case there are new readers, or dear ones who forget from time to time ;), I’ll just keep reminding before every video I post)

We moved on out to the Gerlache Strait, and as the sun was setting…

… the whales decided to put on quite the show.

(I know this is dark, but if you enlarge it, you should be able to see the 2 whale blows)

We were told that there were 3 species of whales all feeding and blowing in front of us – Fin…

(that dorsal fin is back near the tail)

… Orca (but I didn’t get any pictures of them) and Humpback. I think this was a Humpback mother and calf…

…. mainly because of their showing off as they dove –

Closing now with my super lucky shot of the trip -