Antarctica - Cuverville Island

The ship repositioned after the morning for our Zodiac landing at Cuverville Island.
Our first trip out here was another landing. Our clothes had almost dried out from the morning's trip and all the rough water. We took a trip across the bay to a landing that the crew had already landed and marked so that we could hike while also staying away from the penguin colony.
We stopped at the landing site and there were again, hundreds of penguins in a colony. They were walking around and jumping in and out of the water. The guide told us in advance that this colony is very curious and would not be afraid to walk in our direction. Many came close and we would have to move away to not interfere with them. The penguins in the water would follow the Zodiacs as they landed and left the landing site. We them walked further up the hillside to see even more of the stinky penguins. It was pretty easy walking since the snow was soft in the afternoon.
After we got back to the ship we had about an hour before our Special OPs boat tour. This was a higher speed boat tour of the bay, glaciers and cliffs. On our way out we stopped and were circled for about 20 minutes by Humpback Whales. One dove and went under the boat. I was thinking what the safety procedure would be if a whale hit our boat. It's a steel military boat, but still... The whale was larger than the boat. We saw many Humpbacks swimming together and breaching the water as we moved around the bay. We also saw groups of penguins swimming together in herds. They were probably searching for food to take back to their nest and the young.
Today was a GREAT day for animal watching in Antarctica - Humpback Whales and tons of Penguins!Read more