Very early this morning we crossed the Antarctic Circle!  Most expeditions do not get this far south as the weather and ice conditions need to be ideal.  Lucky for us everything was in our favour and we are currently exploring an area that has few visitors.  Even our very experienced expedition leaders are pretty excited!

Our first landing this morning was on Jenny Island in Marguerite Bay.  The primary attraction here was a bunch of ratty looking elephant seals.  The mating season is over and they are now in full moult.  For the most part they just ignored us and continued their lazing about on the shore.  They won’t go back into the water or eat again for several weeks until their fur regenerates.

This afternoon was much more raucous.  We visited our first colony of Adelie penguins at Pourquoi Pas. There were thousands of the cute little critters waddling around on the rocks.  I think Warren took about 400 pictures but he just couldn’t help himself!  

After the party with the penguins, the weather was calm enough for us to kayak around the bay.  The double kayak did not have a rudder and we spent a fair bit of time spinning in circles but it didn’t matter as the scenery was just so stunning.  We were basically at the edge of a glacier and surrounded by icebergs.  The landscape here is very black and white but it is broken up by the stunning blues of the ice.  As we paddled around, we listened to the thunder-like cracking of the ice and occasional splish-splash from the penguins that would porpoise out of the water beside us.

To top off our first full day of exploration, we had both an orca and a humpback whale show after dinner.  As we were finishing our dessert, the call came over the PA system that there was a pod of orcas near the ship.  We watched them for a while then headed back to our cabin to hunker down for the night.  But wouldn’t you know, just as we got into our pyjamas, another call came over the PA – this time is was humpbacks feeding right off the bow.  So we threw on our boots and parkas and headed back up on deck.  It was worth it!  Two humpbacks fed and dove and fed and dove for a good half an hour right in front of us.  Finally made it to bed as the sun was setting.