It’s hard to predict what else you might see other than penguins when visiting the Antarctic. Sure, there’s a chance you’ll see whales and orcas and other birds, as well as seals. But there’s very limited wildlife in-and-around the continent. The only mammals are whales and seals. After that, it’s a handful of birds and that’s pretty much it. There are a few tiny, tiny insects, but they freeze in the winter and defrost themselves in the summer (how cool is that!?!?!). Oh, and there is zero vegetation except for some very limited lichen and moss in the summer time.
We had a few treats. One evening we got to see to a group (a “herd” or “pod” or “pack”)of 12 or so orcas (killer whales) swimming together in front of our ship. They must have been there for half an hour, and it seemed like everyone ran to the decks to watch. Our on-board A&K expert in whales, orcas, and the like hopped on the speaker and narrated for us while pod continued to swim. In the first pic below, the orca in the lower right of the photo could have been the big male of the pod, with a dorsal fin could have been 6′ tall. You read that right. Six. Feet. Tall.
Amazing to watch. Stunning to see.
We saw a few Weddell Seals around. We couldn’t get very close, and most of the time they were pretty inactive, like this one comfortably napping. The bird is a blue-eyed cormorant.
Another big treat was the number of humpback whales we saw, both from the ship and – in the case of these couple of photos – from our zodiac. This gal (or guy) put on a small show for us – no breaching, but a few fin and fluke flaps.
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