Ice and Whales

This afternoon on our second day in Antarctica, we went cruising in the
zodiac to see the ice and were lucky enough to see a whale. We were out
about 90 minutes cruising among the icebergs and sea ice. Icebergs are
from the glaciers on land made of fresh water, and sea ice is frozen sea
water. The sea ice tends to be flatter and the icebergs are blueish and
of sometimes fantastic shapes. It was snowing a bit, with some wind, but
we didn't get too cold.

They were hunting for Minke whales all day with various zodiacs
reporting sightings, then suddenly one of them surfaced right next to
our zodiac and proceeded to swim around and under our zodiac for several
minutes. It was hard to get good pictures because it moved so fast,
never above water for more than a second or two. The guide said it was
the best encounter with a Minke she had ever had.

Steph says: Speak for yourself, it was really, really wet and cold. It
was snowing (wet snow) and we were perched on
the edge of a Zodiac with the wind blowing. We are learning a lot about
Penguins. Today we say some Gentoos
swimming. They jump up in the air and look like flying fish. We were
told that they generally mate for years at a time
and when their offspring are ready to mate, they return to the location
where they were born. Unfortunately, we probably
won't see any Emperor Penguins which are the ones that are featured in
March of the Penguins. It's too late in the season
for them. One of the guides reported tonight that he saw a Penguin
having sex with a dead female. Unfortunately, we had
left the landing for the boat so we missed it. Dwight did get a photo of
two live Penguins mating however.