Antarctica
Today was such an amazing day that I am still having my blissfull smile on the face !
I woke up at 4am to work. That doesn't sound that good, I know, but now imagine it with the sun already high in the sky, the sea shining around you, the light sound of breaking waves hitting the ship, and a nice cup of tea. Better, isn't it ?
But yet, it was still tiring and so I went back to bed after work to sleep a bit, or at least I was trying to when I heard a discrete knock on my door. It was to inform me that there was something to see, as a few hours ago I was complaining about my legendary unluckyness: I missed the seals and the whales several times. So I rushed to Monkey Island (the highest bridge on the ship... don't ask me where does this name comes from) and faced something so beautiful that I wished my eyes were camera for not to lose any bit of the show.
Our first (and likely only!) sight of Antarctica
There were icebergs everywhere, and none of them was similar to another one. Their size ranges from an icecube to Luxembourg ; they all have different shapes, from the "basic" rectangular one to the most complex ones with slides, holes, caves, waterfalls... ; they can be as white as fresh snow or deep lagoon blue, white lots of nuances due to the clouds, the sea and the sun reflecting on it. In a word, I could have spent my day just watching them and taking pictures.
Adelie penguins having a look at the JCR
But that was not it! Because on some of those icebergs there were penguins! The first one we spotted was a lonesome penguin, facing the sea on its blue icy platform. Then some Chinstrap penguins swam and fished around our ship. Then a few minutes later we saw some more icebergs with penguins (the most crowded one has at least twenty passengers), with one so close to us that our ship scared the two Adelie penguins sunbathing on it who dived just next to us ! And last but not least, we had a few seals playing and fishing just in front of our cameras (well, the fastest ones). We were just missing an Orca or a Whale and we would have had the perfect Antarctica postcard.
Chinstrap penguin leaping out of the water
More flying chinstraps!
But the day is not over yet ! We are currently steaming towards a big iceberg and we expect to stop really close to it, so we will probably meet some more cute inhabitants of the Southern Ocean. We'll let you know tomorrow...
Back to the journals.