Goodbye Penguins, Hello Whales

Lemaire Channel - Booth Island

This morning we got a special wake up call to come to the bow and watch the boat pass through the Lemaire Channel. The Lemaire Channel is a narrow passage between the peninsula and Booth Island. Its entrance is through sweeping tall mountains and glaciers, and it's dotted with icebergs. The entire channel seems out of Narnia, with it's tall mountains, glistening white snow and glaciers, and blue water. Majestic and pristine. Here's what the entrance to the Lemaire Channel looks like, Antarctic Peninsula to the left, Booth island to the right, and we sailed down the middle:

And went through many small icebergs like this onePenguin, Fur Seal, Gentoo Penguin, Humpback Whale, Lemaire Channel:

Check out the reflection of Booth Island in the channel water filled with icebergs:



We then sailed around to the other side of Booth Island where the captain anchored the ship super close to the land and I took a zodiac to shore to check out some additional penguin colonies (gentoo, adelie, chinstrap) as well as some fur seals. The best part of the morning was that I hung out with Jay Dickman, a National Geographic photographer and picked up some neat points. I also shot what I hope will be a stellar panoramic shot of the bay, including the sun peaking through the clouds, and the stunning mountains and valleys, dotted with penguins and red penguins (people). Of historical note, this bay of Booth Island is where a famous french expeditioner - Charcot - "overwintered" (to use an Antarctic term) in 1904. Our resident historian told us that his expedition not only had a daily menu with wine, but also produced great science.

Here is some of what I saw on Booth Island.
1) Red Penguins, which I found all over Antarctica:


2) Penguins who live with ocean front views:




3) Penguins walking in penguin tracks:


Back on ship we sailed in the afternoon to this incredible bay, Dallmann Bay, full of sunlight and snow covered mountain peaks. Breathtaking. We were whale watching. Primarily humpbacks. I was on the bow and using binoculars to look at a
group of three out in the distance as our captain manouvered our ship in that direction, when all of the sudden, three equally large humpbacks appeared just a few feet off of our bow.



There were so close you could see the details of their flukes with the human eye, see both blow holes, and generally get a sense for just how enormous, graceful, and awesome these whales are. They hung around our ship, checking out the giant blue whale they must think we are, for quite some time, before swimming off in to the distance. I feel very fortunate to have been able to see so many whales on this trip.

Every whale has its own unique fluke, like a human fingerprint. Here is one going for a deeper dive and I got a close look at its fluke:






That just about wraps up my trip to Antarctica. We're heading into the Drake passage as I write. A couple more interesting presentations are planned, and tomorrow there is a screening of Madagascar...I can't wait to see those penguins.