Travel Tips

This picture was taken just outside the old British Base "A". These gentoo penguin chicks would walk right up, so close that one could look right into their beaks. Quiet an experience!!

Gentoo penguins every where, and I learned that if one relaxes and remains still the penguins come right up enabling great photo's and unforgettable wildlife encounters. And who cares laying right into the penguin dung.... everything washes off again :-)

Call me nuts - I guess that is probably what you are if you jump into water that is 0.3 degrees centigrade. But it is good fun - if you aren't one of those who are on the heart attack list :-) The jump into the water was almost ended with a rocket jump out of the water, since the water was so cold. The only word that I could bring out was f$#% - since it felt like needles piercing one all over the body.

Grytviken the main town in South Georgia offers lost of wildlife encounters just on the outskirts of the village. Elephant seals all laze around in the sun and there is simply blubber laying around everywhere. At times they were hiding in the little streams and if one would walk fast without looking one could easily end up right on top of those massive animals.

This was undoubtedly one of the highlights of my visit to Antarctica. The beach was teeming with wildlife and these young elephant seal bulls were not disturbed by our visit. Some of them tested their strength with mock fights, that lasted for a few minutes and then they laid back next to each other as if nothing every happened.

Imagine 250.000 breeding pairs of penguins - that is 500.000 penguins plus chicks, and you sit down on the beach and are completely surrounded by them. It is more then breathtaking. Our expedition team gave the right advise, move slowly, do not walk into the path of the penguins and to enjoy it even more - sit on the ground and let the penguins approach you. And that is what I did - an experience one cannot describe....

Prion Island was another favourite and my first spot to see the beautiful wandering albatrosses, one of which is the little white spot to the left of me. The island was so busy with birds, seals and penguins all over the place. Here I encountered a little baby seal suckling off the mother - simply incredible!

Huge tabular icebergs some towering 20 meters above the sea level with 90 % being hidden underneath the water. That is a huge iceberg! This was Antarctic Sound where hundreds of tabular icebergs floated around - at the end there was no way through and we had to turn around and change course.