BONUS More Amazing Iceberg Photos

 REAL-TIME NOTE:  We are back in Orlando. (and WiFi).  Our flight from Ushuaia landed in Aruba!?  Turns out Argentina has no formal agreement with the US for inbound flights(?) so we landed in Aruba, deplaned, ID'ed baggage, went through US customs, re-checked in, reboarded and lifted off for Orlando!

Meantime more amazing photos of Antarctica:

This is a wreck of a whaling ship from around 100 years ago.  At the
end of a very successful season with the tanks full of whale oil, they celebrated
their fortune before sailing back to Norway.  Party got our of hand, a 
fire started and destroyed the ship and the oil and the company.  The
drunken sailors survived.  The mast behind is a modern sailboat!?
We discovered it takes sailboats 4 days to cross the Drake!  Insane with seas
10-30 feet!

Santa at the SOUTH Pole?

Christmas was celebrated with Santa, in a zodiac amongst the icebergs motoring to our ship to bring Christmas cookies for everyone.  The morning excursion and landing was on a huge ice field.  Lots of good views.  In the afternoon we motored among a huge number of icebergs.  Stunning.

 

A note on our days/night cycle.  Sunset is 12:24pm, sunrise is 2:09am.  We sleep by pulling our window blinds closed.  Since we aren't leaving the boat, our morning lecture was on "Who Owns Antarctica".  Short answer, nobody.  It wasn't even seen until 1820!  Of course, no indigenous human population.  Just penguins and seals on it and whales around it.  The penguins and seals continue to flourish, the whales are rebounding.....slowly.

Final two days, no more bandwith

 Hi all,

Short and sweet, no pictures.  Satellite bandwidth for wifi is gone.  I will post Saturday and Sunday's blog from either Argentina or Orlando during layovers.

Last two days were amazing, we'll catch you up, hopefully, Tuedsay morning.

An afternoon with the penguins.....up close.

 After the Orcas and lunch, the weather started to clear and we headed to a new penguin roockery on Danko Island.  Not as huge as the last one but, and not as dirty, either.  Great surrounding views and a few of the penguins were very curious of us.  An unexpected surprise was a minor landslide on other side of the bay.  It cracked like thunder and a 'bit' of snow descended.  The noise was more dramatic than the event.  All the snow stayed on the mountainside, none came down to the bay.

Orcas!

Summer in Antarctica is not like summer in the Arctic.  Since we were working above the Arctic Circle last summer, we are able to compare.  There is no comparison!  The Arctic is water surrounded by land, the Antarctic is land surrounded by water.  Warm, green, mosquitoes (due to mammals) in the Arctic, cold, snowy and no insects in Antarctica.  The list goes on.  BTW, Antarctica is the driest continent on earth,  only 2-3cm of precipitation per year!

The morning zodiac excursion was canceled.  Snow, fog, floating ice.  Indeed, it was announced that our destination was not accessible due to a report from a Russian Icebreaker that was leaving the area!  Nice that everyone is talking to each other.

A BIG surprise for the crew, a pod of around 20 Orcas starting playing with the bow of our ship!  Really, once-in-a-lifetime experience for everyone!  This continued for around 20 minutes.  Everybody was outside taking thousands of photos hoping for a few good ones!  Amazing.

Show off,  he flipped over diving under the ship!

Today, the weather won.....till the afternoon

 The plan today was to land on Useful Island.  Named by whalers a couple of generations ago. Turns out due to weather, high seas and snow depth on the island, it is Useless Island.  Instead, we got a lecture on whales and  went through Berlache Strait to whale watch.  Great lecture, two whales, well 'blows'.  A few saw a couple of whales blow, and that was it.  (We missed them).

So, backtracking to Cuverville Island.  The afternoon was very different.  Good weather, we all climbed into zodiacs and headed out amongst the icebergs to visit a huge penguin rockery.  6,000 breeding pairs!  They are currently arriving from the ocean where they spent the winter to breed and gorge themselves on krill.  Although our paths were controlled by highway cones, the penguins are curious and will waddle right up to you.

After our penguin experience Armann, from Iceland, our zodiac driver gave us an hour tour of the bay, incredible icebergs, and more penguins wherever we went.  A great afternoon.

On the water all day except for a summit

 After repositioning last night we are in Skontorp Cove where we find a Covid abandoned Argentinian outpost.  After a couple of hours of kayaking around icebergs (amazing), we hiked up a 'snow mountain' behind the very small settlement.  Good experience and exercise to work off the calories consumed three times a day.

In the PM, we repositioned to Neco Harbour and rode the zodiac all around the icebergs, big and small.  More penguins and a humpback whale surfaced.