Photos from Antarctica
I took this picture during a zodiac ride through a graveyard of icebergs in Port Charcot, off Booth Island along the Antarctica Peninsula. It was the third excursion of the day, returning to the ship about 10:00pm. One thing that the Cheeseman Ecology Safari trips are known for, is their maximized time in the field…
The penguins of cartoons are often a combination of a number of the penguin species. The gentoo penguin is the one that contributes the orange feet that have come to define what a penguin’s feet should look like. Ask a child to color a penguin and you can bet the feet will be orange. The…
Perhaps the most sought after photograph of a seal in Antarctica is the leopard seal. It is a top predator in the Antarctic waters, save that of the killer whale. It’s physical size and oddly shaped body, with a giant head and jaws, is formidable. It has been well photographed, and in some visually striking…
The voyages to Antarctica are lengthy and adventurous. The direct route there from the southern tip of Argentina in a large ship is about a two days, and longer if you visit South Georgia Island along the way. Once at the Antarctic Peninsula, daily visits are made to shore at a number of different locations.…
Of all of the species of penguins found in Antarctica, the Adelie is my favorite by far. I think this in part attributed to their cartoon like appearance, with definitive and simple lines of color demarcation. The white circles bordering their eyes make them seem eternally happy and engaged. But they are favored even more…
Twenty three years ago, I read a book that would mark my mind forever. In the genre that my friend dubbed “explornography” Endurance, Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, is an epic, gripping tale of survival and leadership. The Antarctic expedition ship “Endurance” gets crushed in the ice, the crew salvages parts and sails the southern ocean in…
I’m back from a wonderful wilderness experience in the Southern Ocean, where I worked as staff for Cheeseman’s Ecology Safaris on a 30 day expedition voyage to the Falkland and South Georgia Islands, and the Antarctic Peninsula. While I was there, aboard a very ship-worthy Russian Icebreaker named the MV Ortelius, another ship, the Akademik…
I realize this is a slightly early Holiday Greeting but I’m off on a 30 day voyage to Antarctica, and will not be posting again until the middle of January, 2014. I hope to have some vibrant images to share from that southern wilderness of ice and penguins. Like the writer Paul Theroux said in The…
In less than a week, I’ll be flying far, far way from Fairbanks, Alaska, headed to a near equal latitude in the southern hemisphere. This year, my solstice will be reversed and rather than it being the darkest and shortest day of the year, it will be the opposite. Besides collecting the necessary gear (as…
In a few weeks I’ll be leaving for Antarctica. So in the span of a few months, I will have traveled from Alaska’s high Arctic Beaufort Sea to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. Which got me thinking about the earth’s polar regions. So I made a few greeting cards for the Holiday season using the…