Antarctica Day 3 - 1/28/2025
- sridgway38
- Jan 28
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 31
We moved overnight to the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula to a gorgeous place called Cierva Cove. We woke to ice and mountains and an overcast but relatively warm day. It's been warmer here in Antartica than it is at home most days so we're feeling pretty lucky.
We were the first group to go on the Zodiac and our driver was Jonny who is the whale expert onboard and he was great. He took us to see the Chinstrap Penguin colony first.
Next we went close to the Argentinian research station here in Cierva Cove. It is occupied and some of the residents waved to us as we passed.
He then decided to cross to a part of the bay where he had seen a whale swimming when we entered the cove so we crossed away from most of the other Zodiacs and did in fact find a humpback whale.
We then cruised in the bay looking at Icebergs and a woman on the Kayak spotted a Leopard Seal, they are vicious animals who snatch penguins out of the water and eat them by throwing them around and tearing their skin off. We had seen one attack earlier in the trip but this time the Leopard Seal seemed more curious about our Zodiac, swimming back and forth under the boat so that we got great views of just how huge he was.
The expedition leader Jamie gave us a few more minutes past our sheduled return to go look at some other leopard seals hauled out on chunks of ice on our way back to the ship.
We then headed back to the ship amoung some beautiful ice and scenery
We were expecting to have lunch when we got back to the ship but they announced that they were going to hold the Polar Plunge first. Conrad had been waiting to do this and loved it. The atmosphere was festive and everyone had a great time. They were given a shot of "potato juice" aka Vodka when they came out.
We headed off to another cove in the afternoon but we decided to stay on the ship for this one.
Tonight is a Philippino festival at dinner, with most of the crew being from the Philippines and it being chinese new year tomorrow they are very excited. They were all dressed beautifully and the food was fantastic!
Tomorrow is our last day in Antarctica, and then we cross the Drake Passage back to Argentina for one final destination, the Iguazu Falls. We fly home a week from tonight.