Land ho!!!

"Good morning Antracticans. Last night one of your fellow passengers earnt himself a bottle of wine for being the first to spot an iceberg. Congratulations Thomas...." This announcement had us all scurrying topside with our cameras. And there on the horizon under a perfect blue sky was a massive tabluar iceberg (the huge flat ones that have calved from the iceshelf). What an amazing sight to see. It was perfect against the deep blue sea and the clear blue sky as a block of stark white on the horizon.
Cameras were snapping like crazy - setting the tone for the days to come.
The afternoon was spent with whales being spotted all about the ship. And for those that think I am talking spouts on the horizon.. no, no no. The humpbacks were feeding right alongside the ship. Their massive mouths would swing open in unison after they had bubble netted krill into a ball then massive gulps would be enough to have the crowd in raptures. I have included a photo taken by one of my fellow passengers (I had unwisely not taken my camera up with me when I went for a stroll then once the whales arrived I was too transfixed to miss anything by going back inside for it).
Then in the afternoon we had the call we were all hoping for...
"Good afternoon Antarcticans. We have made better than expected time on our crossing and to the front of the ship we have our first sighting of land with the South Shetland Islands. We expect to launch the zodiacs for our first landing this evening..." Yay!!!!!
Now we were getting excited. We all scurried down to the zodiac/landing briefing and picked up our lifevests and boots. Dinner scoffed and we were all loaded into our zodiacs.
Looking back now it is quite funny. I think most of us ladies were a bit nervous about gettig down into the zodiacs and I know that I was not the only one hanging onto the ropes with white knuckles. That first trip was such a buzz. Our first solid ground in 2 days and our first penguins.
Chinstrap penguins are sooo cute. They trundle around like they own the place - which they obviously do compared to us. The colony was complete with babies tucked into the feet of their parents. Our rules were to stay off the penguin highways (tracks they walk in to get across the softer snow), no closer than 5 meters to penguins and at least 15m to seals.
The trick is that no one told the penguins this. If you sit in one spot they come waddling past like you aren´t even there. Being so close is one of the true delights of being ashore. There as not a person amongst us that didn´t fall in love with these delightful little guys.
I had forgotten how cold snow is and my toes were defintiely suffering in the rubber gumboots we were given but it was such a small discomfort to endure to see wildlife up so close.
So our first landing completed all safely back on board and photos to prove I was there. What a great way to start our introduction to Antarctica.