Wow. Wow. Wow. This will be a five part series in an attempt to keep the posts a manageable length. (I said attempt!) Looking back, I clearly had no idea what this trip would be like. No idea at all. First, we’ve never been on a cruise before so there was that. Who decides to go on a 19-day cruise when they have never been on one before? 🙋‍♀️ Yep, these people right here. I can definitively say that I am not a boat person. It doesn't help that these expedition cruises are on relatively small boats (ours had a passenger capacity of 186) and traverse some of the roughest waters in the world. The Drake Passage “wasn’t so bad” according to our lead expedition guide. If that is true, I do not want to experience a rough passage.

Antarctica Expedition Cruise Day 1

Everyone passed the day one Covid test and was able to board the boat. Not a single positive test. So off we went through the nice calm waters of the Beagle Channel.

Due to a mandatory embarkation quarantine, dinner was in our rooms. We had plenty of entertainment on our TV in the room: live lectures from our expedition guides and movies including Planet Earth, March of the Penguins, and for variety, Forrest Gump. I was glad I had the foresight to download a few audio books in case the motion of the boat made reading hard. Did I mention I'm not much of a fan of boats?

Antarctica Expedition Cruise Day 2

Everyone passed the day two Covid test, so (hooray!) our quarantine ended early after only 20 hours and we were free to explore our new home on the Ocean Victory.

We entered the Drake Passage the first night, so hanging out in our room was not a bad thing! As you can see in the video, it's a rough crossing although the crew said this is pretty mild. 😮 Thank goodness for seasickness medicines!

The Drake Passage is the waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. It's 620 miles wide, about the distance from London to Berlin. Its average depth is 11,150 feet, although the ocean floor is thought to reach depths of up to 15,700 feet near the passage’s southern and northern boundaries.

The wandering albatrosses, as well as lots of other seabirds, kept with our boat but I was still trying to get a decent shot of them! 🤞🤞

Antarctica Expedition Cruise Day 3

Another Covid test before breakfast… everyone was still negative. Hooray!

South Shetlands. On day 3 we passed into the Antarctic circle. We survived the rough waters of the Drake Passage and saw our first bit of land. (Land ahoy!) Our pretty boat, the Ocean Victory, is brand new and remarkably fast! So fast we kept getting places faster than planned, which allowed extra expeditions and landings. The first unexpected landing was an afternoon at the Shetland Islands. About 75 miles north of Antarctica, the Shetland Islands only have a population of about 600 people in the summer and 190 in winter. The islands are almost completely covered in ice, apart from some small coastal areas. We landed our zodiacs in one of those small coastal areas: Walker Bay of Livingston Island. Verila Glacier, extending 2.3 miles across and 8.1 miles long, and emptying into the bay was a beautiful backdrop to the wildlife.

Our first elephant seal encounter. He was probably the prettiest of the elephant seals we would see. Elephant seals go through a catastrophic molt where they shed all of their skin and fur over a three to four week period. During this time, they lay about on land, usually all cuddled up in groups to keep themselves warm. You'll see later on how miserable they are! This one has just barely started the process.

Looking back on that day now, I had no idea that this was a small glimpse of what we would see in the coming days. Just no idea. I looked at this beach dotted with penguins—hundreds of penguins—and it never occurred to me that in the coming days I would see double, triple, even hundred-fold the number of wildlife I was seeing on that little beach in Walker Bay right then.

Like the elephant seals, the gentoo penguins go through a catastrophic molt. The process usually takes about two weeks and during this time the penguins are fasting, forced to stay on land and unable to feed because during the molt they are no longer waterproof. Now those grumpy faces make a lot more sense, right? I’d be pretty hangry if I had to amble around clumsily on land starving for two weeks waiting for my new waterproof feathers to come in.

At times, the landscapes and sounds around us made us feel like we were on another planet. One untouched by humans, the vastness unmarred by conveniences like coffee shops, roads, or even trails.

Antarctica Expedition Cruise Day 4

We woke up the morning of day four floating into Cierva Cove, an area surrounded by glaciers and full of icebergs and the furthest south we will be on our cruise. The water was calm, even glass-like. The cove has a large gentoo penguin colony so we saw a lot of penguins swimming around the cove while we hung out. A zodiac boat trip around the cove got us up close to some impressive icebergs. I've never seen a blue like I saw today. (inspiration for a new hair color? 🤔)

The icebergs in Cierva Cove come from glacier calving (the shedding of ice from the front of a glacier into the sea). Between some icebergs over 800 feet long (that’s taller than the Wall in Game of Thrones, in case you were wondering) and brash ice (fragments of floating ice less than two meters in diameter), navigation can be tough in the zodiacs!

Icecaps are shaped by wind and can become a work of art. Of course, I think erosion in any form is pretty fascinating! Never thought I'd see an arch in an iceberg!

Fun fact: The blue ice is a result of years of compression when the ice was part of a glacier (you can see the same blue in glaciers). The compression forces out the air pockets making the ice really dense. The ice absorbs all other colors then reflects blue.

We enjoyed a BBQ lunch outside (yes, we ate outside for lunch!) and a hot tub ready for some relaxation while we moved to Mikkelson Harbor for our afternoon excursion of a zodiac boat tour and landing at D’Hainaut Island.

Mikkelson Harbor and D’Hainaut Island did not disappoint! Another gentoo penguin colony with lots of molting penguins! And lots of penguin poop! If you are friends with me on Facebook, you had the pleasure of seeing the 360° view I put up. You get the penguin views without the penguin smell of thousands of penguins. You’re welcome! :)

In the video below, the Mama penguin is working on weaning her baby and teaching it how to run around. Mama penguin accomplishes this by feeding the baby a little bit, then running away making the kids chase her. I could seriously watch penguins all day long. Who else thinks running after your food might be a good weight loss plan?

The leopard seal looks so sweet and innocent chilling on an iceberg with his krill leftovers … until it gets in the water and starts hunting! We saw a handful of leopard seals relaxing on the ice the first few days. I had no idea those were the only ones I would see out of the water on the whole trip. We would have plenty of chances to see them hunting though!

One reason I was excited to go to Antarctica at the end of the season was to have the chance to see stars at night. You have to have sunsets to have stars. This sunset lasted from the time we sat down to dinner until well after we were done eating. Poor Jim had to listen to me say wow every few minutes. Pure magic. (Spoiler Alert! I never did get to see stars in Antarctica. It was entirely too cloudy every time I went out to look. The lights on the ship wouldn’t have helped even if it wasn’t cloudy. Next time (!!) I'm going early in the season so we can camp away from the lights of the boat and maybe still get enough darkness for stars.)

Part 2 of 5 of the Antarctica Expedition Cruise coming soon!

Additional favorite photos from our first few days of the trip (in case you haven’t gotten enough from the selection above) can be seen below. Click on the image to experience the full version.