A wonderful voyage through iceberg-strewn seas to the Antarctic Peninsula and Paulet Island with its large colony of Adelie Penguins.
A spectacular morning as we sailed towards Paulet Island off the Antarctic Peninsula. We woke early and went out on deck with the sun just risen, clear blue skies and icebergs all around.
There was a lot of brash around - small pieces of ice.
Never tired of photographing the many different iceberg formations.
The Antarctic Peninsula is mountainous and deeply snow-covered - as expected.
Photography was quite tricky. Pristine white icebergs in the foreground reflect a huge amount of light, the peninsula in the background then looks darker and the snow takes on a blue/lilac cast reflecting light from the sky.
Paulet Island is only 1.6km in diameter and was once an active volcano. Its cone rises 350m out of the sea.1
There were lots of Adelies on the icebergs and a humpback whale quite close to the shore.
We boarded the Zodiacs and headed for the island which is home to a large colony of Adelie Penguins.
There were a lot of Adelie chicks still covered in brown downy feathers.
The exploration ship Antarctic, of a 1903 Swedish expedition, got stuck in the ice and was wrecked. The crew reached Paulet Island and built a stone hut, the ruins of which can still be seen.2
Some of the penguins eyed us very warily, I hope tourism isn't distressing them.
After wandering among the penguins, and taking far too many photographs, we got back in the Zodiac for an excursion along the shore, spotting Weddell seals, fur seals and plenty of penguins on the ice.
It was an amazing excursion. We headed back to the ship feeling we'd been so lucky to see so much on our trip so far. Incredible icebergs and snowy mountainous landscape and so many different species of penguins: King Penguins in the hundreds of thousands, Gentoos in a clifftop colony, Adelies on icy landscape, Macaronis on steep cliffs and the lovely Chinstraps.