Mikkelsen Harbour 28 December - AM

 A beautiful morning excursion in Mikkelsen Harbour.  Alighting from the zodiac in the best conditions I've encountered anywhere. It was so easy, crew didn't even need to offer hands for support.  

And the scenery was breathtaking.

 

 

Across the harbour we could see a glacier coming down to the water.  This calved off in small segments about a dozen times and one very large section.  Each one sounded like a distant explosion.  I wasn't lucky enough to capture the large fall, however this one shows small section falling.

 

We are always instructed to stay 5 metres from the animals, but sometimes they have other ideas.  

 

This guy appears to be guiding the hikers to the left. 

It was mainly Gentoos at this site. They have orange beaks, orange feet and white head markings sometimes described as eye shadow or headphones. The females nest on a comfy pile of stones, lovingly collected and arranged by the males.  There's a bit of argy bargy when the males steal a particularly appealing stone from another nest.

 

 

 

 

For each landing, the guides arrive early to assess suitability and flag out a safe path for passengers. 

This picture gives an idea of the distance across the bay, and yet we still clearly heard the ice calving from the glacier. 

 

Stick to the path!

 

 

We needed to stay on our path as closely as possible.  Stepping off often meant sinking into the snow. Both Sam and I ended up on one knee after sinking down.  Sam gave me a good tip to step into shallow footprints, not deep ones.  And of course avoid any blue mushy footprints .

 

 

 

Linda - Antarctic explorer!

 

 

Just as the humans had their path to stick too, the penguins create their own highways through the snow. If the two intersect, penguins have right of way 😁 

 

 

 

 

One of the penguin (coloured with poo) highways

 

The mysterious photo of the day is the guy top centre of this photo, who appears to be wearing a fur coat. We've named him Gangsta Penguin