We arrived in Ushuaia late afternoon after a delay in docking due to our berth being occupied by another ship that was delayed in leaving.

Ushuaia is regarded as the most southern city in the world or as the sign says – the End of the World!

It was a quiet day as it was a Sunday and many shops were closed so we had a quick walk around and headed back to the ship.

The view of the mountains from the ship was impressive.

We departed at 11pm and headed South across the Drake Passage.  Fortunately the Drake was unusually calm and we had a very smooth passage.

The day crossing the passage was spent exchanging boots so we had a comfortable fit and doing our bio-security check to make sure all our clothing and equipment was free from anything that may contaminate the pristine Antarctic environment.

The next five days were spent in the Antarctic doing scenic cruising and zodiac landings.  Cruising through the narrow channels was spectacular with amazing icebergs all around

To get an idea of scale, you can see a seal and penguins at the bottom of the iceberg.

Amazing lighting early morning and at sunset.

 

 

Sue took this photo of a seal through the dining room window while we were having dinner.

Another pic where you can get a sense of the size of the iceberg from the people in boats at the bottom.

Cruising around Neko Harbour in a rubber zodiac, pushing our way through brash ice, we saw an avalanche.

Close up view of the end of a glacier.

Then we saw penguins…

We saw several large colonies of Gentoo Penguins.

The penguins all had chicks and as we headed further south, they were younger as the breeding cycle starts later there.

We also saw some penguins tending eggs.

If the penguins get too hot, they lay flat on the ice to cool down

The penguins spend their time between hunting for food and feeding their chicks.  They use the same pathway to and from the rookery to the water, and these are known as Penguin Highways.

We had a rare sighting of a leucistic gentoo penguin – they have reduced melanin and are almost completely white.  The one in the photo below is walking past some gents who are cooling down on their bellys.

We also had numerous whale sightings, many of them very close to the ship.

and witnessed a rare phenomena of “bubble feeding” where the whales create a net of bubbles to trap the fish before catching them.

We also saw seals on icebergs as they floated past.

Our itinerary and activities were governed by the weather and the Captain did an excellent job of finding pleasant conditions.  Unfortunately due to weather conditions we were unable to land in the areas where we would see species of penguins other than Gentoos.  Most of the time the air temperature during the day was above freezing although the wind made a huge difference when it came up.

We did have some snow early in the trip with enough to make a snowman on deck and it also snowed on our first day ashore

After departing the Antarctic we had to cross the Drake Passage again and head to the Falkland Islands.  This time the Drake Passage lived up to its reputation and we had 100Km/h winds and 10 metre waves to deal with!  The boat handled the rough weather  well and the worst of the storm was at night so we slept (on and off) through it.

Our journey in Antarctica took us to several landmarks and our most Southern Point Reached was 65°07’ South.

04-Feb-14	Yankee Harbour	62°32’ South, 59°47’ West
04-Feb-14	Deception Island	62°57’ South, 60°38’ West
05-Feb-14	Gerlache Strait	64°30’ South, 62°20’ West
05-Feb-14	Neumayer Channel	64°47’ South, 63°30’ West
06-Feb-14	Waterboat Point	64°49’ South, 62°51’ West
06-Feb-14	Lemaire Channel	65°04’ South, 63°57’ West
07-Feb-14	Cuverville Island	64°41’ South, 62°38’ West
08-Feb-14	Neko Harbour	64°50’ South, 62°33’ West

To see all of our photos from Antarctica click here to open a new window