3 Feb 2014 – Sunny Antarctica: Paradise Bay, Dalman Bay,
Willemina Bay, Astrolabe Island.
Antarctica is usually whipped by strong winds, under low
hanging clouds or blinding snow storms, but today we enjoy one in a million
days. The ice pilot aboard ship remarked that in his thirty years of Antarctice
life and travels he has never seen a perfectly clear day with mirror smooth
seas as we enjoy today.
Without much explanation, may the photos speak for
themselves. Imagine them ten thousand
times enlarged, with nothing but silence around, every magnificent scene mirrored
below the horizon…..words are not adequate to describe it.
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| Whale descending into the deep |
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| Blue Ice |
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| Glacier Ice close up...not an imperfection in the crystalline sculpted piece |
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| Immense Sky over a vast and magnificent land and seascape |
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| Gentoos heading for the sea |
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Seal enjoying his private porch
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| Antarctic wind swept sky |
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| An azure pool inside a large iceberg |
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| Some of these mountains are over 3000 meters high - and are dwarfed in a photo |
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| Surprisingly enough, there are a few scattered navigational aids in this remote area of the Antarctic Peninsular...seals and penguins enjoy the rocky outcrop |
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| Sun - Sea - Sky - Glacier covered mountains |
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| Huge Icebergs fill the still bays... |
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| Over and over one is surprised and awed by the beauty and azure colour of icebergs |
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| Reflection in an ice strewn sea |
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| 1/10th above and 9/10th below - imposing on either side |
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| Vibrant blue foot of an iceberg |
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| Chilean Base - the surrounding mountains and glaciers were visible for the first time for me. During the last two passages, it was blowing a blizzard, and one could hardly make out the outcrop of land, where the base is situated, never mind any of the surrounding landscape |
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| The Chilean scientist went ashore and waved their National Flag...some only dressed in t-shirts |
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| And the other inhabitants of the base - several tens of thousand of noisy, braying and smelly penguins, who totally ignore humans, machinery and buildings and carry on raising their young |
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| Fat seals sun baking |
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| And another gloriously hued mountain of ice... |
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| Leopard seal, the most aggressive of Antarctic Seals, not even hesitating to attack humans above water or when diving into the Ocean |
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| Flying the European Union Flag, the three-master motored it's way through the spectacular channels... |
