Amber on Ice

There is a lot more I want to blog about relative to the Dry Valley's BUT I cannot wait to post these. On our way home from the Valley's our pilot, let's call him Paul with a British accent just to give you a mental picture, agreed to fly us over the Sea Ice Edge. The Ice Edge at this time is roughly 25-30miles out from McMurdo Town. The "hope" is that the sea ice will break and go out all the way to the Ice Shelf edge which is right around the corner from McMurdo near Scott Base. This hasn't happened in the last several seasons due to that B15 Iceberg, the one they referenced to being the size of Jamaica. Well B15 has since moved and/or split so the expectation and hope of many is that the sea ice will go out completely this year. In doing so, there is much greater potential for wildlife to come into McMurdo Sound nearer town -- including penguins, seals, whales, etc. Okay, back to our flight home.... Yep, we saw HUNDREDS of penguins. Mind you I did see the Emperors when they were out on our Ice Runway but I never saw anything like this. There were Emperors and Adelie's everywhere and they were waddling around, flopping on their bellies, jumping in the water -- it was spectacular!!! The pilot didn't want to get too close for fear of scaring the penguins into the water and if there were Killer Whales around they might get eaten. I was like scare away -- I want to see that and Killer Whales too? Bring it... The pilot was amused with my schoolgirl squealing at the sight of the little black-white buggers. It was a true Antarctic Highlight. I could leave tomorrow and be completely satisfied now that I've seen penguins. Sorry I didn't zoom and/or crop, motivational issues are sometimes a problem for me : )

We also were able to land on one of the icebergs, Pilot Paul named it Amber's Iceberg. Um yeah, totally cool -- I have my own iceberg now, floating around in the Ross Sea.