Icy Waters and a Humpback Whale Encounter

It's Christmas Eve and we're enjoying about 22 hours of daylight at the moment.  The sunrise has typically been about 2am with sunset in the ballpark of midnight.  We're sleeping at that point, but it is more like twilight than truly dark during those two hours.

Today we woke up early to catch a 7:30 zodiac cruise around Hidden Bay.  Not a lot of wildlife to see as it is vey icy, but we did manage to catch a crabeater seal floating on an iceberg.  Not as animated as yesterday's Weddell seal but still fun to see.  The scenery was awesome and traveling through the ice on the zodiacs made for a fun adventure.

Port Charcot

We set sail mid-morning through the Lemaire Channel to Port Charcot on Booth Island. Lemaire Channel is a narrow passage where the captain has to steer carefully to avoid all of the icebergs in the channel.  It was one of the prettiest stretches we've seen since the icebergs floated so close to the ship. Port Charcot is known for having all three species of penguins in Antartica -- Adelie, gentoo, and chinstrap --- although we didn't happen to see any chinstrap.  Port Charcot is named for the French explorer Jean Baptiste Charcot who led his first expedition between 1903 to 1905.  We hiked through snow to the bluff where we could see the bay on the other side giving us fabulous 360-degree views of water, mountains, and icebergs. 

Waving its flipper

On the zodiac ride back, we happened upon a humpback whale near the ship which afforded us incredible close-up views as it ate krill while diving and surfacing.  At one point, it even rolled on its side and "waved" at us with its flipper high in the air.

It's been another wonderful day in Antarctica.  The crew is performing Christmas music soon, so we're off to catch that this evening.