Today was the first day we got off of the ship. We were in Fournier Bay which is a bay in Anvers Island in the Palmer Archipelago of Antarctica. We did not go on to land, but went out on smaller boats.

An iceberg we saw while sailing to the bay with a bunch of penguins.

Looking for wildlife while sailing.

Our room is right over where the store all of the excursion boats. This is the crew starting to get them out for us. The big white square is the door of the ship.

Heading out on a zodiac.

We saw around 10 humpback whales today.

Looking at ice.

Not the best picture, but the underside of whale’s flukes are like fingerprints and can be used for identification. Add in scarring from things like orca bites and it becomes very identifiable. There are photo databases to track whales by their flukes.

This one kept breaching.

And this one was fin slapping.

Returning to the ship. This is the bay where the excursion boats get stored. You can see the elevated big white door from the earlier picture.