Antarctica - Argentine Islands

Today we arrived at the Argentine Islands farther south into Antarctica. We were supposed to move north and stop there, but the weather is really bad so the captain chose to move farther south. This is the farthest south that Viking has sailed in Antarctica.
The first thing in the morning the ship released a weather balloon - GO SCIENCE! - to gather information on the atmosphere to share with weather gathering organizations around the world. Each time a Viking ship stops in Antarctica a balloon is released. We then watched the data being gathered in real-time on a huge screen in the science station and Dr Brandi was again very excited to explain why it's important and how the data will be used.
Then to the Special Ops boat to head out to the bay, navigating around all the ice and icebergs to look for seals, penguins and birds. All of this information is cataloged by the scientists on board to share the wildlife in Antarctica this year. Along the way we saw many, many icebergs from huge ones much larger than our ship, to small chunks that have melted away. The wildlife along the way were Adele Penguins, Weddle seals, Leopard seals and Crab Eater Seals. The seals were lounging around on the flat, table icebergs enjoying the sunlight. They hunt for food at night in the ocean and are just lazy during the day. The were not very entertaining. We did run into more penguins swimming and diving in the water looking for Krill and fish to eat.
Our second outing was on a Zodiac that moved more slowly though the ice fields and icebergs since it's made of inflated rubber. We did see seals and penguins again (not the same ones, but who can tell them apart). We cruised by the Ukrainian research station which is still operational and the abandoned British research station. The Zodiac could get us closer to the icebergs than the high speed boat, but we still had to maintain a distance. All the icebergs are unique and beautiful. The dark blue coloring on them is from the intense pressure that compressed snowflakes into ice crystals then solid deep blue ice. They are blue because of the light frequency that the extremely dense ice absorbs. Each time the bay is visited, the icebergs are different since the waves, sunlight and salt water change their shape. Every time we look out at the ocean it seems that there are icebergs everywhere. I'm sure we haven't seen them all yet...Read more