Epic Antarctica Adventure- Day 18

Epic Antarctica Trip, Travel Adventures 2 Minutes

Epic Antarctica Adventure- Day 18

Friday, February 9th

Whales, Portal Point, and Hydrurga Rocks

We were awakened by Ali, our expedition team leader, at 5:30 AM because we were surrounded by at least 25 humpback whales!  It was incredible!

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Every direction around our ship, we saw humpback whales!
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We could hear them because it was very quiet on the decks.
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Beautiful humpback whales.
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The whales are huge!
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One of the pods of whales that we observed.
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Humpback whales and this spectacular backdrop!
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They were feeding on krill.

 

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We saw many tales!

Watch these videos and have your volume on and you can hear the humpback whales!

The weather cooperated and we were able to kayak this morning around Portal Point which was our first Antarctic continental landing!

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A beautiful morning for kayaking!
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Gorgeous landscape!
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Todd, one of our kayak guides, is giving us information about this crabeater seal.
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A crabeater seal relaxing on the iceberg.
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We kayaked through the brash ice!

When we were finished kayaking this morning, we boarded a zodiac and walked around the continent of Antarctica.

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Our first continental landing on Antarctica.
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We saw our first Weddell seals.
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“I’m too tired to worry about you!”
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This beautiful lake on Antarctica.

The pictures below are unedited and no filters.  In fact, every picture in our blog have had no editing at all.  Antarctica’s landscape is just amazing!

After lunch we arrived at Hydrurga Rocks and we did a second kayak trip.  We paddled all around the rocks and we also got to zodiac to the rocks and explore the chinstrap penguins! Our underwater camera did a decent job giving you our view from the water.

Kayaking around Hydrurga Rocks
Tara, our other kayak guide, is giving information about the Chinstrap penguins that we are seeing on the rocks.

The pictures below were taking when we were exploring on the rocks and watching the chinstrap penguin colony, shag colony, fur seals, and weddell seals!

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Shag Colony
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Chinstrap Colony
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Notice all the guano. And boy did it smell!

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Chinstrap chicks covered with a lot of guano.
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This chick almost has all of his adult feathers.

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Sleeping the day away!
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“Ready to strike up the band!”

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There is nothing like O-H-I-O with two other passengers from Ohio!img_2001.jpg

British beer tasting on the back deck!

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Fun for all!

Beautiful evening out on deck.  (It’s about 10:00 PM when we took these pictures.)

 

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One thought on “Epic Antarctica Adventure- Day 18”

  1. I see why they are called chinstrap penguins……loved the fuzzy babies…..
    Loved hearing the whales and their flukes disappearing beneath the surface. And the wonderful conversations between each other gives them soul and presence……how could anyone kill them! I know for food and blubber, but not to kill to just kill!

    Reply

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