Reaching Antarctica

All, we made it to Antarctica! Tons of pics to share, so here they are.

Antarctica ice

Our ship breaking through the ice

ice

Here we are actually on the ice

Antarctica penguins

Tens of thousands of these guys around

icebergs

One surprise is that most of the icebergs look like this one rather than the ones you normally think of. They are VERY flat.  I guess it’s because they just break off of the Antarctic Ice Shelf which extends out to sea. But these things are HUGE.

caldera

This is a caldera (the crater a volcano leaves after it blows) on Deception Island. It last exploded in 1969 and wiped out the Chilean and British research centers. We will take a hike around it.

caldera

antarctica research center

Research Station. Even though Antarctica is bigger than North America, fewer people live here year-round than can fit into your typical movie theater.

william shatner

This was a cool message we got from William Shatner before we set sail

Although the ship arrived, we haven’t actually set foot on Antarctica itself, but will be doing that later today. More to come…

Onward! -JB