Antarctic Day 2 - Paradise Bay and Andvord Bay - March 1

The second day of cruising the Antarctic Peninsula was even better than the first. The sun came out part of the day and the cloud cover lifted a bit, revealing more of the Antarctic landscape. Captain Gianluca took the ship close in to view a glacier and we moved slowly through a lot of loose ice floes. We went close to a Chilean research station that was just teeming with Gentoo penguins. I never could get a close up photo of a penguin, but the final video of this page does show a hundred or so of them "porpoising" through the water, albeit at a distance.

Two videos of glorious Paradise Bay ...

... and Penguins!

Antarctic Day 1 - Dallmann Bay and the Gerlache Strait - Feb 29

We arrived in Antarctica on Leap Day 2024, which made an unusual day seem even weirder. All the previous day as we transited Drakes Passage, the temperature kept dropping and it was a balmy 30F when we arrived. As we approached, the icebergs we saw grew bigger and the amount of sea ice floating by increased too. Then the icy peaks of Antarctica's Anvers Island appeared and we spent a lot of time on the 12th deck, "rugged up" as the Aussies say, taking it all in. At different times we saw humpback and fin whales, seals and thousands of penguins. Most of the wild life we say through binoculars and iPhone photography could not capture wildlife at a distance. So most of these photos are of the stunning otherworldly scenery as we cruises silently along.

And as usual, a video is worth a thousand frames:

Antarctic Peninsula - Feb 29 - Mar 2

We had the easiest, calmest, smoothest crossing of Drake's Passage imaginable! Wave swells were never more than 6 feet and the wind was under 20 knots. We called it Drakes Lake and realized just how lucky we were!

On February 29 around 1pm we arrived in Dallmann Bay off Anvers Island, just a few miles off the Antarctic Peninsula. This map shows the track taken by Seven Seas Voyager for the next three days as we explored multiple bays, channels, straits and islands viewing icebergs, glaciers and wildlife, ending our visit at Elephant Island, where Shackleton's Endurance crew spent so many months waiting for rescue.

In the next few posts I will share accounts and photos from each of these magical days in Antarctica, where the great weather continued to hold for us and we saw so many icebergs, penguins, whales and seals.