More from Goudier Island & Port Lockroy

Day 5 of the trip took us to Goudier Island and historic Port Lockroy.  The former British station is now a museum that I believe shut down for winter about a week before we arrived.  That morning's kayak excursion was amazing.  The sky was clear, the sun was out, we kayaked through brash ice for the first time and witnessed an amazing feat of nature when a Leopard Seal caught and killed a penguin within feet of our kayaks. (I'll write a separate post on what we witnessed that morning including the GoPro footage.)

As we launched the kayaks, the sun was trying to come through the clouds and everything appeared to have a hazy glow.  Within a half hour the skies cleared to a bright blue and the sun illuminated everything around us.

Our surprise welcoming committee of Gentoo Penguins

Gentoos perched on snow covering some beautiful blue ice.

The Gentoos taking a quick nap.

Port Lockroy Station, a British research base that was turned into a museum. 

A quick clip from the GoPro:

Kayaking next to glaciers and mountains.

A deep blue ice cave.

As we kayaked around the bay we ran into some more penguins and some sea birds.

I think those are skuas flying by the penguins. 

I was amazed at how blue the sky was when we had clear days. 

Our ship in the distance.

Kayaking through what is called "Brash Ice" - it's so much fun to here the crunching as the kayak breaks through the ice.  It's really easy to get stuck on larger pieces of ice though!  Fortunately I didn't need to be rescued by our guides but we all had a couple close calls.