Post Archive by Year

Our icebreaker the Ortelius as we approached the Antarctic Circle.

Speaking of breaking ice – we are heading out the door – my next post will be from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park!

An Adélie Penguin peaking over a snow mound in Antarctica.

A beautiful evening last month in Antarctica.

Crabeater Seals.  I think Crabeater Seal is a funny name for a seal that doesn’t eat crabs.  They eat krill and other crustaceans.

I found it difficult to capture interesting images of seal in Antarctica because they pretty much just laid there.  I thought this was one of my more interesting seal images thanks to that wonderful background!

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 70-200 f/2.8 lens at 180, ISO 320, f/8 and 1/2000 of a second.

This was at 2:29 in the morning as we neared the Antarctic Circle.

Our icebreaker cruised through ice flows like this as if they were nothing.  But, the large ice ridges off in the distance were a different story.  The captain studied them closely before picking his route so that he could push through a weak spot.  We were allowed in the bridge and it was interesting listening to our captain shout out orders.  Things like “Go right there and ram it!”  Even though he was Russian, he was giving orders in broken English I think in part for our entertainment.  I got the feeling that icebreaker Captains live for this – at least it appeared that our Captain was having a good time.

A group of Gentoo Penguin.  I’m guessing this one may not resonate with a lot of people, but I liked the graphic nature of this image.

This is the moon over the Antarctic Peninsula near the Antarctic Circle.

So many things were backwards down there.  For starters, it was summer in January.  It seemed weird to head South during the summer for longer days and North meant shorter days.

The one thing I hadn’t thought about was that the moon would be backwards.  It appears backward because we are basically looking at it from upside down when you are at the bottom of the earth, kinda like standing on your head.

So in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun light moves across the moon from the left to the right creating the familiar DOC shapes as it moves towards full and then away, it does just the opposite down South.  In the Southern Hemisphere, that same memory tool becomes COD.  In other words, the D shape you see in this photo we associate with moving towards the full moon actually means we are moving away from it when seen in the Southern Hemisphere.