The Traveling Widower

Tag: penguins

  • Antarctic Wrap-up

    December 1st, 2025

    ”Hey it’s good to be back home again”
    “Sometimes, this old house, feels like a long lost friend”
    ”Yes and hey it’s good to be back home again”
    John Denver, Back Home Again

    I finally made it home after 19 hours of flight-time collectively on three separate flights starting in Ushuaia Argentina, to Santiago Chile, to Atlanta and then finally to Sacramento. Phew. I put in a couple of miles of walking though airport terminals, waited in security and customs lines multiple times, had some pretty good meals (1st class on international flights), and managed a few solid hours of sleep for a change. It’s now Monday, and I’m pretty much back to my boring life – it’s weird being alone again after sharing this incredible experience with 130 people, many of whom knew me by name (and not just because we wore name tags). But, it’s still nice to be home, and I’m looking forward to light meals, no alcohol, and working out daily. And I already go my chipped tooth repaired! My dentist said the Lindblad physician did a great job with the temporary fix.

    With all the idle time on airplanes and airport lounges, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on this trip, resulting in the last post on this trip – how sad. Nothing to write about for a while. 

    Overall rating – Superb/Beyond Belief/Best Ever 

    We had the cruise finale meeting the last evening at sea, where the Lindblad captain said that this had been an extraordinary trip, even from his lengthy experience in the Antarctic. We went further south, beyond the Antarctic Circle, than cruise ships normally go, and went through thick ice fields to an uncharted bay, filled with moving masses of ice…and managed to send out Zodiacs for 2 hour exploration rides through the ice, and even let the kayaks out to play (but closer to the ship), all the while the captain and bridge crew had to keep moving the Resolution to dodge icebergs (phew..quite the run-on sentence). That one day was an extraordinary experience.

    Pretty much every stop we made was a step beyond anything I’ve seen or done before. We visited four separate penguin colonies, each filled with hundreds or thousands of these amazing little critters. Just watching them waddling around, swimming and porpoising in the ocean, or stealing rocks from their neighbors nests, was a sight to behold. The scenery around each site was beyond belief. I want to come back and see the penguin chicks some day, and definitely want to see the larger penguins (King) in the South Georgia Islands. Maybe 2027 (already looking into a cruise there).

    Every outing was different, and they were not all focused on penguins. We explored an old, abandoned British research station (Station W) on the Detaille Island – it’s been maintained as a self-service museum of sorts, in pristine condition, still filled with old cans of food, games, clothing, radio equipment. And a really disgusting looking bathroom (just a wood plank with a hole in it – and the researchers had to clean it out). I forgot how many men stayed there – about 16 I think. They must have been good friends. It was an interesting stop, and we all hiked up a hill for some great views of the surrounding coastline and glaciers. 

    I’ve already described our ‘stable shore ice’ outing – that was incredible. And like most of our time in the Antarctic, there were penguins and seals flopping around. It always paid to have your phone or a camera handy since wildlife just seemed to pop up on the ice out of nowhere. Catching those images was pure luck – which I never seem to have. I did get to try out ship hauling – who knew that this was a potential career for me.

    Another stop I have not written about was Crystal Bay(not sure about the name) – this was scheduled as a Zodiac/Kayak opportunity and once again, we lucked out with perfect weather. Blue skies, little if any wind, and a perfectly flat sea. There was not much wildlife to see, other than a couple of humpback whales (fluke shot below), but cruising through the icebergs was fun – lots of interesting shapes making for good photo opportunities.

    All NatGeo/Lindblad cruises allow 24/7 access to the bridge – I’ve checked with some of the other expedition type cruise companies, and from what I can tell, you have to get permission. The bridge on the Resolution was amazing – high tech, lots of room for guests to wander around, plus there was a large observation area in front, which looked down the very unique bow of the ship. The captain gave a 2 hour presentation on the design of the ship – it is an absolutely amazing ship. The bridge though was special – you could stand behind the pilot’s “Captain Kirk” chair, and get the same view they had of the navigation and camera view screens arrayed in front, and watch as they manipulated the thrusters and engine pods with what looked like game controls. It was a tech geeks dream to watch as they maneuvered through narrow gaps in the ice flows. 

    I am truly blessed to be immune to wave motion on ships – so many of the passengers had to deal with motion sickness during the Drake Passage (both directions). I slept like a baby. The ship’s physician was extremely busy those days. For me, I kind of enjoyed the passage – there was a lot to see – Humpback and Orca whales, and flocks of sea birds. I spent a lot of time out on the observation decks during out passage to Anatactica, attempting to photograph the different Albatross and Petrels swooping around the ship. The passage back to Ushuaia was rougher, but still not too bad. The forecast was bad for the next group going out – we lucked out.

    Overall, with our bonus day for getting there early, we spent almost 6 days wandering around Antarctica, covering a large area. The ship’s path in map below, when expanded (not able to do that in the blog) looks like someone just scrawled blind-folded on the map.

    I have so many photos to curate from this trip…and a lot of videos of ocean waves, floating ice, and stumbling penguins. I might eventually do a ‘best of’ and/or a slide show, and post them. Everyone loves penguins. Plus, I get to learn something new.

    I enjoyed sharing my trip on this blog. I hope you found this interesting. Comments are always welcome.

  • Cruising Antarctica  – Photos only

    November 26th, 2025

    I have completed a very brief first pass through the images that I’ve capture from this incredible journey. Some I have already posted, others are recently curated, but I thought it would be nice to just have a single post, with a few of the best what I’ve digested so far. Unfortunately the software has limitations on how many images I can include in a gallery. I’m grouping them by topic: Penguins, Seascapes, Mountains & Glaciers, Ships & People & Everything Else. I will limit my blatherings to just brief description of each category.

    Remember that you can enlarge any photo by double tapping it.

    Penguins

    I placed this on top, since it’s probably what most readers are interested in. We visited four different colonies, and spotted penguins pretty much everywhere we traveled to or through. The little critters cover a lot of territory to feed. We saw two types, Adelie and Gentoo. There were a few Chinstraps spotted, but I did not see them. The birds were nesting at all of the colonies, and I did include one picture where the penguin stood up and you can see the mottled egg. Chicks were not born yet. The colonies are all large, noisy, stinky and very messy. You have to clean and disinfect your boots when you get on board. The photos are all mixed up, so if you are interested, the Adelie penguins have the all black heads, and the Gentoos have the black and white with the longer orange beak.

    Seascapes

    This category is mostly icebergs and sea ice – pretty much all the ocean images that were not of the shoreline (next category). We did see a lot of whales during our cruising, but I did not bother with the camera since there was nothing really worth capturing. We did see a very exciting encounter between a pod of Orca’s and two Humpback whales last night, but the photographs would just have shown some fins at a distance. Apparently, the Humpacks were adults, and the Orca’s were just being jerks. It was not a real fight. Once one of the Humpbacks started fin slapping, the Orcas beat a hasty retreat. I’m blathering….sorry.

    Mountains and Glaciers

    I’d have to say that this was some of the most amazing scenery I’ve seen in my entire life. I have seen (and fallen down) mountain glaciers before, and cruised around the glaciers in Alaska, but the views of huge mountain, and the continental glaciers literally falling into the sea were beyond belief. I was speechless so often.

    Ships & People & Everything Else

    I did manage to photograph subjects other than penguins – a lot of pictures of the ship, zodiacs cruising around, people on the stable sea ice (a new term for me), and some other odds and ends that I photographed. I have not written about everything we’ve done on the trip (yet) and may do another post to cover some of these leftovers.

    And a couple of others for good measure