• RTW Redux ... 2023
    Good morning scenery that reminds us that we are in Antarctica.
    Andvord Bay — Antarctica.Gentoo penguins rafting by — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Andvord Bay, Antarctica.What are those black dots on the ice? — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Bigger ice ... more gentoos — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Andvord Bay, Antarctica.That patch of light on the glacier is all we see of the sun — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Our first whale of the day is of the "ice species" 🤪 — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Ice arch — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.A glacier receding up the mountain — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Serene — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.South Polar Skua — Andvord Bay, Antarctica."Admiral, there be whales here" ... as Scotty said on the Star Trek movie — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.1Humpback whale bubble net feedintg — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.1Fluking humpback bids Insignia goodbye — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.More gentoos on a berg — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Glimpse of what lies beneath the surface — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.Andvord Bay, Antarctica.A river of ice that still reaches the edge of the water — Andvord Bay, Antarctica.One of the bigger bergs we saw in Andvord Bay, Antarctica.

    Antarctica: Andvord Bay

    February 18, 2023, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ ☁️ 28 °F

    Mui and I were looking forward to returning to Paradise Bay … one of our favorite places in Antarctica … near where we made our first continental landing in 2007.

    Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. There was too much ice at the entrance … Insignia is not ice-hardened. And we presented too big of a sail for the wind that was blowing at 22 to 30 knots.

    Instead of sticking around just because Paradise Bay was the listed “destination” for today, we moved on to Andvord Bay … to make the best of what the Antarctic gods handed us … in true expedition style.

    It was a mostly B&W sort of day, but we enjoyed amazing, larger-than-life polar scenery, passing some of the largest icebergs of our trip thus far. We also saw plenty of gentoo penguins rafting by on large bits of ice … close enough to clearly identify them.

    But the highlight had to be the “whale fest.” It seemed like they were all around us … mostly humpbacks and a couple of minkes. They showed us some amazing feeding behavior … often in quite close proximity to Insignia. In fact, Mui got our best whale footage to date when a humpback surfaced next to the ship and went about feeding as though we didn’t exist in its universe. (Alas, the file is too big to share on FindPenguins, so the short snippets I took with my iPhone will have to suffice.)    Read more