First Photo Cruise

The colony of blue-eyed shags didn't care that I was in the Zodiac for a two-hour photo cruise with ship's photographer Shayne McGuire. They were more concerned with the giant petrel trying to eat their chicks. Crowding together around their young ones, they eventually drove off the intruder. I felt sorry for him. The hungry bird had to go elsewhere for a meal, but at least the baby shags were safe. That's the thing about Antarctica. You never know whether you should pull for the penguins or the fish, for the seals or the penguins. Nature is raw here. Everyone eats. For a while. Then everyone is eaten. Eventually. I suppose that process goes on everywhere, but in Antarctica it is in your face. Dozens of icebergs showed their lovliest blue faces on this overcast day, and I heard a crack loud enough to announce the end of the world as a glacier a quarter mile away calved an iceberg as big as a city block.Read more