Beautiful Antarctica but really cold

We know we must be in Antarctica because we wake to see our balcony deep in snow. It's really cold now. I can see a zodiac just below our balcony and it is covered in snow with two naturalists shoveling snow out. Up until this point we've been able to get away with one layer under our officially issued Antarctic weight jacket, but I suspect from now on we will need two layers on top, long johns under our pants and two layers of socks.

We are again the first group out at 8:00 a.m. The excursion is really one of observing wildlife in a place called Palaver Point. Despite a significant amount of snow, the day is clear and dry. The wildlife is much as we have seen before, fur seals, Chinstrap, penguins and Gentoos. It is surprising just how far up penguins will walk for breeding, they don't breed on ice. We can walk among the wildlife keeping our distance observing everything in absolute wonderment of what is around us. I find it really is incredible to be here . It is not a very strenuous morning, more, just a wander.

The afternoon is a zodiac ride around a bay very close to the ship. Because of the wind, the captain has selected a different bay to the one planned. The day had brightened up and promised to make for an excellent zodiac ride. Being out amongst the magnificence of massive icebergs is wonderful and you do get a sense of being at the end of the world. It's quite serene. Again, there is a lot of wildlife and with the keen eyes of our naturalist zodiac driver, we are alerted to whales in the water. We can see them everywhere Bob described this as whale soup.

The landscape is a mixture of glaciers on the landside and large icebergs surrounding the zodiac. We are seeing so many whales I think because of the way the icebergs when they are moving stir up the sediment at the bottom of the ocean which stirs up nutrients on which the krill feed. This means large quantities millions of tons, of krill feed here and as a result so do whales. We are told a humpback whale needs as much as 3 tons of krill a day.

Back on the ship we continue to see whales all around us. I was standing on the balcony and what I thought I heard was a wave hitting an iceberg in fact, just to my left, what I had heard was the blow of two whales. They were so close to the ship. Even at dinner we saw whales from the table where we were sitting. There were so manyMeer informatie