Continental Landing in Antarctica

Today we got a true taste of Antarctic life. In the morning, we were pleasantly surprised by a pod of orca whales, maybe 10-14 of them, which we then followed for an hour. As you could only see their dorsal fins, seeing the orcas wasn’t a great photo opportunity. After breakfast, we went out in the zodiacs for two hours, where we saw our first Adelie penguins!

As we continued our zodiac tour, we came across beautiful icebergs. This iceberg was one of my mom’s favorites, as the sun was reflecting on it to create different shades of blue.

It was almost scary driving around in the zodiacs because you could hear the zodiac going over icebergs, which resulting in a loud popping sound—almost like popcorn popping in a microwave.  It was also pretty cold with the wind, so I ended up looking like a ninja with all my gear on!

We even got to disembark the zodiacs to step on a drifting iceberg…But that didn’t last very long because we had to rush back to the boat so we didn’t get stuck on all the drifting ice!

The kayaking team wasn’t so lucky, however. Even though the kayaking team was directly behind our zodiac, they got stuck in all the ice and have been stranded on a drifting iceberg for over 3 hours. The boat kept trying to get to them, but unsuccessfully.

Once it was high tide, the kayakers were finally able to paddle back to the boat, where they were warmly welcomed by the other passengers on the top deck.  While I am extremely thankful I chose not to go on the kayaking expedition, this could have happened to any one of us—even in a zodiac. Thankfully, the zodiacs are supplied with a tent, sleeping bags, food, water and extra fuel in case something like this ever happens again which, apparently, happens quite frequently. As one of the expedition leaders said, this wasn’t the first time this has happened and it certainly won’t be the last.

After dinner, we went to Brown Bluff for our first continental landing and walked around an Adelie and Gentoo penguin colony.  We saw many chicks that were only a few days old as well as many other Adelie penguins that were sitting on their rock nests.

It was an eventful day to say the least!