Antarctica - Dec 8th

Antarctica – Friday, December 8th

The eastern sky this morning had kind of an orange hue.  It was much similar to a sunrise or sunset.  The difference was that this photograph was taken around eight o’clock in the morning.  Sunrise was around two o’clock this morning.  At this time of year the sun does not get very high in the sky.

One thing we have noticed about navigating through, around, and in between all the many, many islands in Antarctica is that the ship will navigate into what looks to be a dead end.  About the time you believe that the captain is lost and there is no way out except to reverse course the ship will turn and make its way around another island and through a passage that had been heretofore unseen.

Many of the mountains here are shrouded in clouds.  The water in the sea will evaporate and rise.  Once it is over the much cooler ice, snow, or terrain it will condense.  This condensation will then form clouds, which will hang over the mountain tops unless there is sufficient wind or some other weather to move them.  Quite often you cannot see the tops of the mountains for the clouds.  And sometimes you can see the tops of the mountains but not the middle slopes.  This makes for beautiful landscapes.

Later this morning the ship stopped within a few hundred yards of the end of a glacier.  We stayed for about an hour in hopes that we could see the glacier calving, which is when pieces of the glacier break loose and fall into the ocean.  But we were not lucky enough to see any today.

Our excursion for the day was a landing on Danco Island.  It was a climb to the stopping point that was about one third of the way up the hill.  From there one had a very good view of the bay.  There were a number of Gentoo penguin colonies on the hill.  There were LOTS of penguins and lots of penguin droppings.

On the way back to the ship we spotted one Chin Strap Penguin.  Gigi named him Little Pig Number Three (from the story ‘The Three Little Pigs’).  In this picture he is the one on the right.

We also noticed that on a sunny day the icebergs appear white.  On a cloudy, snowy day some of them take on a blue hue.  It is said that the difference in the hardness of the ice will refract the light differently.  This is why some of the ice appears blue while some of it appears white and still some of it appears clear.

After the short zodiac ride back to the ship we had a dinner and did a load of laundry.  Tomorrow we are going to Mikkelsen Harbor for another zodiac landing.

Tomorrow will be another adventure.