We had an early morning to set out through the Lemaire Channel, a very narrow channel with ice flow and huge mountains on both sides rising out of the sea. It was foggy, snowing and cold but we braved the outside to photo it.
The mountains are thousands of feet high with equal amounts below the surface. Glaciers are formed from snow on top of topography like mountains. The snow melt turns into ice and more and more ice is deposited year after year. The glaciers are fracturing and creating amazing icebergs. Icebergs have 90% of there surface below the sea. We saw some icebergs that were bigger than our ship and some the size of massive buildings.
The color of the iceberg is blue because pure ice is absorbing all the colors and the blue shines through.
Cruising around on zodiacs we weaved our way between these behemoth icebergs and snapped hundred of photos.
Later in the day we visited Petermann Island a colony to Gentoo penguins and their chicks. The smell of the penguin guano is something to experience. The Gentoo have an orange beak to distinguish them. The penguins were very friendly and came to within several feet of us.
After lunch we cruised again to see icebergs, seals and more penguins this time Adelie penguins on Yalura island. They were very small and cute.
This evening we will pass back through the Lamaire channel on our way to new destinations.
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