More kayaking photos from Antarctica

A few more of my favorite photos

Here are a few more of my favorite photos from my instagram feed. They're all no filter other than the enhance control.

An iceberg that appears to be glowing with blue light from within.   Check out my post on blue ice if you're interested in why this happens!

Another blue rippled ice wall.

The perfect sunset in Antarctica.

Blue Ice

I didn't expect to fall in love with ice on my trip to Antarctica, but I did.  I am completely obsessed with ice, icebergs and bergy bits now.  One of the most beautiful surprises of the trip was seeing blue ice.  Blue ice is hidden deep within glacier crevasses or is just floating around on and under smaller icebergs.

Why does ice turn blue?  When snow falls on a glacier it eventually gets compressed as it moves towards water.  While the snow is compressing and moving with the glacier, any air bubbles trapped in the ice are slowly squeezed out of the ice eventually making it clear.  The ice looks blue for the same reason that the water looks blue- the result of oxygen and hydrogen bonds that absorb certain light colors and reflect only blue.  If you'd like to read more check out wikipedia for a quick lesson.

Here are some of the photos I took of blue (and blue-green) ice!

This is an unedited photo I took when we were cruising through the Lemaire Channel.  This smaller iceberg is almost completely blue and really stood out against the glassy water.

A seal resting on some glacier ice extending out from land.  The blue green water below it shows the outline of how far the ice extends below the surface.

Close up of the blue crevasses in an iceberg like the one below.

This shows the deep blue crevasses in the glacier wall as well as some blueish icebergs floating in the water.

The color of the water above the iceberg below the surface reminded me of tropical waters.

Those tiny dots are penguins hanging out on the iceberg.

And here are some photos taken by other passengers:

The sunset I promised...

In my posts about Lemaire Channel and the French Passage, I referenced the amazing sunset we experienced.  As promised, I've put together some photos shared by my fellow passengers as well as my live GoPro footage (scroll to bottom for footage).  Special thank you to Vicky and maybe Stacey/Clif for most of these pics!

This is another amazing photo captured by someone else as we began our sunset journey.

We stood on the bow and watched the sun drop into the horizon.

The colors were so intense- everyone captured such different views and angles of the sun.

I love thee colors in this photo.

The clouds changed shapes and colors as quickly as the sun set.

Almost gone...

One of my favorites because of the colors. Love.

I'm not sure who captured this photo but I think it's Vicky & Sully. 

d

And here's my live GoPro footage of the sunset. It was so perfect.

The first iceberg!

When we left Ushuaia we knew it would take about three days to get through the Drake Passage and reach our first stop.  It's tradition to have a contest to see who can guess the location and time of the first iceberg.  I learned how to read a nautical map and with a little math I came up with a pretty good guess of the longitude/latitude and time.  If I remember correctly my guess was probably about the second or third runner up but we spotted the iceberg about an hour or so before my guess.

The nautical map used to chart out location.

The bridge of the ship; right side was designated for the captain and left side was where passengers were allowed to quietly observe.  This was a great place to watch the bow of the ship as it crashed through the swells during the Drake Passage.  I'll post some GoPro footage of this later.

The first iceberg floating all alone.  We were so excited to see this giant white mass!  Honestly, I was surprised how excited I got and I was all alone in the cabin when the announcement came on the loudspeaker.  I seriously struggled to get the port open and I probably looked like a panicky maniac but I was able to get some great shots and of course take some selfies : )

Another view of the iceberg as we approached.

I took some pretty ridiculous pictures- hey, I was excited!

Marine Mammals in Antarctica March 16-26: Map & Video Slideshow

I'm still sorting through the photos, videos and journal entries I kept during my amazing trip.  I am hoping to start writing some more interesting posts later today and throughout the week.  I'd rather take my time writing about particular experiences instead of just uploading thousands of images.  Below is a map charting our stops by name longitude/latitude.

Map showing our stops each day.  There were typically two excursions each day- one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  We would spend most early afternoons and most nights traveling between locations. 

In the interim I wanted to share another video created by OneOcean that includes some of the trip highlights.  I have to warn ahead of time that this video includes very graphic footage of a leopard seal catching and killing a penguin.  While this is entirely part of nature, it might be difficult to watch for some so just skip ahead of that's the case.  Thanks and I hope you enjoy!