Jan 21: Paradise Bay - Ketley Point, Lautaro Island (65 degrees south latitude)

Picture yourself sitting about a foot above calm water in a ridiculously beautiful bay filled with icebergs, "bergy bits," and brash ice and surrounded by mountains of ice and rock. Sun shining, breeze not blowing and, when the motor of the Zodiac is turned off, utterly silent except for the calls of the penguins on the shore and nearby islands. The only other sound is the water, gently lapping the Zodiac's hull, and then you hear a sudden outrush of air. Turning towards the sound you see, emerging gently from the water about 50 yards away, the topmost part of a head as long as your Zodiac, above which you see some residual steam hanging in the air in the shape of a plume. Part of a massive back emerges from the water as well with a fin in about the middle. Perhaps you hear another breath, see another plume of steam, and then the back arches into an impossibly tight bend and the head and back sink beneath the waves. You're lucky today and, as the arch rises into the air and straightens, flukes that look like as large as the wings of a light airplane are raised into the air, water cascading from them, and the animal dives from view; it will appear again at a time and place of its choosing with absolutely no regard to where you're looking or what might be easiest for you. All you can do is to wait for the whale to show itself again and hope to respond more quickly the next time. 

That was today, riding in the Zodiac in Paradise Bay. 

Earlier in the day we'd watched whales blowing and diving all over the bay - as many as 20 individuals in five groups. We watched whales approaching the kayakers from the top of Lautaro Island, we watched whales rising to the surface to blow from Ketley Point, and we watched the whales from the slopes of Ketley Point and from the decks of the ship. Some got to see whales breaching early in the day (not me) and some saw a whale breach near the ship at the end (I saw the whale fall back into the water with a sizable splash), and some simply tried to chase the "whoosh" of an exhaling whale. But whether one saw a breach, the flukes, or simply the steam, all returned to the ship impressed with the presence of the whales (humpbacks) with whom we'd shared the harbor.

Even better than the whales, however, was the sheer beauty of this part of the world on the large scale and the small. With the snow and mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula to the east and the South Shetland Islands to the west, the passage is spectacular and, on a blue-sky day such as we had yesterday and today, both sea and sky (and the odd bits that have broken off and are floating in the bay) are a lovely shade of blue that many agreed needed to be seen to be believed. Seen from above, as we were able to do at both of today's destinations, it makes for a stunning tableau. And I apologize if it seems I am waxing overly rhapsodic about the place - it's just thatt he photos and the words I'm posting here can show you what a small bit of Antarctica looks like, but as I mentioned earlier, you can't see the scene in its entirety, you can't patch it together with the other bits you've seen, you can't hear the penguins braying and the whoosh of a whale exhaling, you can't smell the sea or the cleanest air on the planet or the penguin poo, and you can't feel the boat rocking gently in the silence, nor can you feel it skipping from wave to wave as you motor across the water. It's a full-sensory experience that I simply can't do justice to here.

As was the case yesterday there were some of the inevitable minor snags - and, again, they just didn't matter. It was a great day. 

As I write this I can hear and feel the engines; our speed is only two or three knots but our course is now heading towards the north (northeast) for the first time in a week. Tomorrow we'll have a landing at Georges Point in the morning and Duperre Bay in the afternoon. Then we start the two-day transit back to Ushuaia and I'll be home the following day. Hard to believe.