Petermann Island and the fake backdrop

Ok, afternoon adventures (or maybe I should say later afternoon adventures). We were off to Petermann Island. We were with the landing group first and just as our zodiac pulled into the landing, we saw John, one of the expedition staff, pick up a baby penguin and sneak it back into a nest. I was just in awe! Apparently they had seen the chick fall from the nest. John took a minute to make sure they knew which nest the chick had come from and then put it back. The mama penguin took the chick back and all seemed good. I was just...wow. I want to save baby penguins! It was unfortunate that we later heard that the chick wasn't doing very well. They weren't sure what was wrong and just had to leave it to take nature's course. I was sad, but still in awe of John. Anyways, moving on from the attempted baby penguin rescue, we started to explore the island a bit. I think the shocking part was how many times I looked off into the distance and thought, that totally looks fake. Our resident art guy even said, if somebody brought that to me for a film, I would tell them it was terrible and looked fake and try again. 

Petermann Island is home to two types of penguins. The gentoos (my favourites) and Adelie penguins. Again, there were a bunch of chicks. The Adelies were actually quite big and it was funny to see them try to still be little babies. It's like when Peggy (my family dog) tries to be a lap dog. She's not a lap dog. And these weren't baby penguins. 

The gentoos were still little! Little enough to fit two! The chicks are all so flippin cute, doesn't matter what kind. Love love love. 

Love this view from Petermann Island. All the penguin dots. The fake background. Amazing.

Loved watching the penguins waddle around the island, jumping all over the rocks.

Or tobogganing down the snow. Love love love the penguins.

Oh, also was impressed with the view of the ship and the icebergs and all of it.

Ok, zodiac ride. This time we had Sam, the French Canadian camp master, as our zodiac driver. He did a pretty good job and there were a few good laughs. We saw porpoising penguins (always love that).

And then, to mix things up a bit, we got pretty close to some humpback whales. This one, it was really close. Ridiculously close. 

I like this one. A lot. I like the bumps on the tail. I like the iceberg. I like the little black dots on the iceberg (penguins!). I just really like this photo. 

Even though technically we ran out of time, we were able to convince Sam to take us over to what I called the McDonalds iceberg (not so easy to pick out here, but there are two arches). And it was huge (look at the zodiac). We were up where that other zodiac is in the photo, but I couldn't get both the arches in the photo then (the second arch is on the very left of this one). It was pretty awesome (totally running out of adjectives). 

Ok, back on the ship, there was some celebrating. There was a competition for guessing the time we would see the first iceberg as big as the ship. And another for guessing the time of the first whale sighting. Well, Cody (from Tennessee) won one of them (he also won the Antarctica convergence contest) and Ben (from Australia) won the other. That meant bottles of cheap bubbly in the Polar Bear Pub!

Susanne, Cat and Michelle

I just had to throw this next photo in cause I just love all the stuff going on in it (and people's faces in it). I know most of you won't care about it, but it makes me very happy. Good times in the pub.

Tom, Ben, Brent, Marianna, Brooke, Susannce, Allan, Josh. 

And to top off the night - this was the view from the back deck at 10:45 pm. An absolutely beautiful end to the most wonderful day. Pleaneau Bay and Petermann Island - icebergs, leopard seals, crabeater seals, gentoo penguins, adelie penguins, humpback whales, and finally cheap bubbly. Antarctica - I'm in love.