Our Antarctic journey continued February 4, 2027 at Cuverville Island.  

The plan was to visit another Gentoo colony. 

We saw more and more Gentoo penguins. They were everywhere.

 

We saw this smart penguin laying on a flat rock catching the morning rays.

Cuverville Island had early whaling activity and there were a few remnant bones.  A whaling crew brought in one whale at a time to process the resources.  In the beginning, whalers did not value whale bones so they were left.  When it was later learned that oil could be gleaned from the bones, they were likely gathered, or disappeared over time in the elements.

As the Gentoo territory was north of the Adèlie colonies, we saw parents still feeding their chicks. 

There was a lot of water play just off the beach.  

Some seemed to just have the “zoomies!”

The Gentoo were completely unconcerned about our presence and very fun to watch.

Randy talked to one of the expedition leaders about penguin black and white coloring.  When the black presented, the penguin is difficult to see from above.  When the white is visible as they swim, they are difficult to see by potential predators from below.

Of course, we also saw a few seals!

Following our morning activity, we had lunch on board Venture and enjoyed the scenery as we sailed to our next destination.

Our afternoon excursion was a zodiac ride in a chinstrap penguin area. 

We were in the final group to go out and the weather had turned cold and windy.   

The ship’s hotel team were in a zodiac with the Antarctica flag and champagne.  It was a very nice gesture but the conditions weren’t great for lingering over champagne!

It was so bumpy that we didn’t even try to get pictures of the chinstrap penguins, or nearby whales.

Photographer Harry had captured this chinstrap penguin earlier in the day and shared it.

Once back aboard Venture, we had our expedition meeting to go over the events of the day and plans for the next day. As was typical, the briefing was followed by lecture segments about 5-10 minutes long.

The first was on ice and icebergs. 

There are a variety of types of ice, all of which we’d seen.

We had seen many glaciers and heard and saw calving numerous times.

When you see an iceberg, only about 10% of it is above the water line.

We have seen all of these shapes.

Randy has been fascinated by the various shades of blue going slightly into purple that we have seen on icebergs. 

We learned why that happens.

Our next lecture was on the importance of krill to the southern ocean. 

Unfortunately, manufacturers are finding ways to use krill and if populations are depleted through this and/or climate change, ramifications on the planet are massive.

We went to dinner, and noticed whales out the dining room windows. This is one of photographer Harry’s pictures and is so special because it also has a penguin!  (The pictures at the end of this post are also his.)

We went to our cabin and saw more whale activity.

We kept going out on our balcony to watch,  and take pictures and videos. 

There had to be 50 whales! We saw them come up and go down so many times – often with three, four or five whales in view.

You could scan the horizon and see whale after whale after whale.  

We went to a dessert event on deck and continued to watch the whales.

 

We came back to our room and continued to watch whales and more whales.

We finally closed the drapes on them and went to bed!

Next Up: Chinstraps and the Polar Plunge