DAY FOUR (Part 1) - 02 16 2013 - Andvord Bay (64°50’S 62°33’W)

We woke up the next morning having entered Andvord Bay, deep in the Antarctic Peninsula. The Bay is located at the following coordinates 64°50’S 62°33’W. The Bay is quite stunning, surrounded by mountains and alpine glaciers.  The mountains rose up sharply on either side of our ship before disappearing in the fog that was gently floating above.  The gloominess made it difficult to photograph.  Hopefully, the pictures below can give you an idea of the enormity and breadth of the bay.

The bay itself was filled with icebergs.  This was our first real iceberg sighting.  Needless to say, it was amazing.  The icebergs came in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors.  I'm sure you've heard the saying "that's just the tip of the iceberg."  This saying comes from the fact that the icebergs that we see on the surface typically only show 10% of their entire area.  The remaining 90% is underwater!  The largest icebergs are tracked by the U.S. National Ice Center.  Click here to see what they are currently tracking.

The color of the icebergs is also amazing, some being white, grey or even blue.  The color is a result of the way in which the iceberg captures and diffuses light.  Some icebergs, created from older glaciers, have been under enormous pressure for eons.  This compression eliminates air and reflective surfaces within the ice.  So when the light hits these older icebergs, the longer visible wavelengths of light (red or green) are absorbed due to the lack of reflective surface.  The blue wavelengths are able to escape, thereby turning the iceberg "blue".  I'm sure the process is much much more complicated...

We also got a glimpse of our first Minke Whale!  It surfaced just a few yards from the ship, it's large back surfacing for a few seconds before sinking beneath the frigid waters. It continued to pop up here and there before we lost track of it.

Our First Glimpse of a Minke Whale

Minke Whales are the smallest and most abundant of the baleen whales.  Generally, they grow to about 25 - 30 feet and weigh 6 -7 tons.  We learned in one of the classes aboard the ship that the baleen is a filter system inside of the whale's mouth.  It looks like the teeth of a comb.  When the whale feeds, it opens it's mouth underwater to take in Krill (it's primary food source).  It then pushes the water out, but the baleen keeps the Krill inside it's mouth.  FYI - Krill is somewhat similar to shrimp and is a food source of a wide variety of antarctic wildlife, including whales, seals and penguins.  

At the end of Andvord Bay lay our destination, Neko Harbour.  The ship anchored a few hundred yards from shore and we began gathering all of our stuff to take ashore.