Antarctica Peninsula

A few more Antarctica photos, taken in a different area, under different lighting conditions.

There is a peninsula extending from the main Antarctica land mass, 800 miles long, pointing north toward the southern tip of South America. The Antarctic Peninsula is where the Veendam went, and it’s the only place where cruise ships go. 1000 miles separate the tip of South America from the tip of the peninsula, and almost all Antarctica tourists go across this relatively short stretch of water, starting out from the little Argentine town of Ushuaia.

The large and well-known emperor penguins live further south on the shores of the main Antarctic continent, so we never saw any of them. But they sure ran that wonderful "March of the Penguins" documentary on the cabin TVs over and over again, as if to compensate. Other smaller penguin species -- gentoo, rockhopper, Magellanic -- could be seen from the ship, but too distant for a decent photograph. I got a much better look at penguins at the Bronx Zoo. The ship never docked in Antarctica -- any ship with more than 500 people is prohibited from docking there.

On one night in particular, December 29, we had something pretty close to 24-hour daylight. Down in this area it was always light out at midnight. Temperatures were pretty tolerable - low 30s, warmest it ever gets down there, since this was the peak of summertime. The waters in these photos are completely frozen over at other times of the year