Whilamena Bay - March 21, 2009

The weather continues to be cold, windy and snowy. Team members are wearing so many layers they look like little kids who have moms that won't let them out of the house without wearing every piece of winter clothing possible. Then they over heat after moving around and end up taking half their layersoff in order to cool down.Today, we spent time in Whilamena Bay and from what I understand; Whilamena was a queen in Holland. We were able to observe a number of hump backwhales, fur seal, penguins and a leopard seal. As I have mentioned before,when we need to cross water, we use Zodiac boats. The bay was full offloating ice and you could hear it grind against the propeller when we hit asubmerged piece. As we went around the corner of the bay and entered a small inlet, part ofthe glacier crumbled. The zodiac driver told everyone to hold on as he quickly maneuvered out danger from the oncoming wave of ice and freezingwater. Everyone braced themselves as he turned the bow of the boat to take the impact.It is now evening; around 11:00 pm Antarctic time and 8:00 MST. I'm in our tent typing this posting as everyone is preparing for bed. You can hear idle chatting coming from other expedition member's tents, but it is muffledagainst the wind. The wind has started blowing a bit harder (I wish I couldgive the exact temperature, but I don't have it) and we are expecting tohave another storm hit during the night. The sides of our tent areflapping around like a kite and my expedition partner thinks it is quitefunning that I have my Hewlett Packard (HP) laptop powered up to continue making blog postings. My laptop is functioning quite well in the coldweather and battery life has been decent even with the draining affect thatcold usually has on batteries. My Nikon camera batteries are also holding up well. As we entered our planned camp site tonight, we had penguins roaming the area and a leopard seal came off the shore and has made its present right outside our camp area. We have been instructed to be very careful because these seals are quite mean and aggressive. They are fairly large and Iwouldn't want to get to close. It is interesting to me to watch the penguins walk near it. Tonight it was also announced that the Drake Passage is having a majorstorm. Winds at gale force 60 knots. That made quite a few people worried about the trip home. Time for bed..

Iceberg Alley

I apologize that the blog postings are not happening as quickly as I would hope. The person in charge of communication has had some trouble uploading data into the satellite. This morning I got up at about 5:00 am and looked out my port window and there were icebergs floating all around. The expedition team was called on deck for viewing. It was -5 degrees Celsius and it was foggy and snowing. The wind is the most difficult part, because it will freeze any skin if it is exposed too long. Icebergs are actually quite stunning and the blue hues expressed under the water are beautiful. This area is called iceberg alley and you can immediate understand why. The captain turned our ship and went into the Weddle Sea where we were about 100 miles from where Sir Ernest Shackleton'sship Endurance was caught in the ice. His story is quite an amazing lesson in leadership. If you are interested, his book is called South. The entire expedition was on deck snapping pictures. The great thing about digital photography is that you can take as many pictures as your memory card will hold, then review and delete later. This is awesome, because youdon't worry about film and you don't miss a shot. This morning we were ableto observe; fur seal feeding on penguin and three Humpback whales.This afternoon we are headed to shore. If the weather continues to be foggyand windy, it is going to be extremely cold.