„This, then, was the Drake Passage, the most dreaded bit of ocean on the globe – and rightly so. Here nature has been given a proving ground on which to demonstrate what she can do if left alone. The results are impressive.“

Alfred Lansing

In 2018 we participated in a photography expedition bringing us to South Georgia to visit some very well dressed, but non-flying members of the avian species. Understandably they stick to the ground, wearing a tuxedo would challenge everybody’s ability to lift off, at least if you want to prioritize maintaining a decent posture. Of course we are talking about penguins.

It was always a fairly high-ranking entry on my bucket list to experience penguins in the wild and that trip did not disappoint at all. Quite the contrary, the South Georgia 2018 travelogue is full of wonderful pictures that I’m very fond of and it holds fantastic memories. Although it has proven hard that I’m not a mariner.

Still there was always that one nagging thought in the back of my mind. Another entry on my bucket list is to visit every continent on the planet and although close, the islands of South Georgia belong to the Sub Antarctic, with still some distance to Antarctica. So technically speaking, I was not able to make that check mark yet. Then one day, another email from our preferred photography expedition company arrived in our inbox with an offer we could not resist: An expedition to mainland Antarctica beginning of 2024 with the Polar Pioneer. Making the decision to participate was done in a lot less than 24 hours, it felt like another adventure tailored just for us. Cold, wet, perfect.

A different thought in the back of my mind was raising a finger about a certain Drake Passage, but then, the price I pay for participating in such endeavors is not just money.

The Polar Pioneer was expected to pick us up in Ushuaia, a place not exactly easy to reach as it sits at the tip of the South American continent with a lot of hours you have to spend in planes. When we arranged our flights, we looked out for sufficient stop over time and a minimum number of legs, the end result was close to 22 hours and stops in São Paulo and Buenos Aires. Then we spent three nights in a very nice hotel in Ushuaia, just to make sure that all of our luggage would have the opportunity to arrive in time before departure of the Polar Pioneer. Naturally we felt relieved that all cases arrived on the belt without any issues when we deboarded the plane, but better safe than sorry as they say. Plus, the hotel offered some very welcome luxury and great food, something that we knew we would miss in the days to come.

From the hotel room, we had a fantastic view over the bay and the sea looked so calm and serene as if no harm could ever be expected from it.

To make good use of the time we still had, we booked a guided tour to a local national park in some offroad vehicles and found roads that the Zebra would have loved. Please don’t tell, it will be furious we did not bring it along.

Overall, the experience was great, it was quite a journey with some beautiful sights.

Fast forward through the three days we had and some steaks later, we finally went to the harbor to board the Polar Pioneer. People that attentively read my travelogues will know already that the ship is not exactly a majestic cruise ship, but a rather archaic icebreaker.

Much to our amusement we were able to tell the crew that we already knew our way to our cabin and we were granted immediate and unguided access. We quickly checked the cabin which was rather spacious and then climbed to the upper deck to enjoy the view. Departure was delayed due to some technical issues, but finally we set sail.

The Beagle Channel was quiet as expected and then Drake Passage was all but quiet. I paid my price. It felt like I angered one or the other sea deity by eventually having eaten too much fish before, as we encountered a major storm which even forced our ship to change course so that we could move with the flow. I was barely able to participate in the mandatory lesson about how to behave in the Antarctic (the second execution of it, specifically scheduled for landlubber like me). Naturally my significant other, being a genuine mountain dweller from Switzerland, was completely unfazed.

After some water and biscuits and a few pounds lost we finally got close to land. Icebergs were guarding the coast, but more important, the waters calmed down and I was able to participate in normal life again.

Here is the Polar Pioneer in all its glory. The lady might have had some extra years of service and a lot of mileage under her hull, but we trust her to bring us to incredibly remote places safely. It does not offer a lot of comfort, but the crew was nice and our guides were excellent.

Still out at sea, normal life was great for birders. I’m quite sure that they were able to acquire some fantastic imagery of those elegant creatures as they were escorting our ship.

For me, really not being a birder at all, my pictures looked more like this.

Luckily the major subject of this trip was not the airborne variety, but the birds that stayed within the water. Look closely, one friendly penguin waved at us as we finally arrived in Antarctica.

Allow me to introduce some of our most important protagonists. First, the Gentoo penguin. They are supposed to be the fastest swimmers among penguins and the most shy. The first we could not measure, the second we could not confirm as those were the first penguins we met after landfall and they came close quite curiously.

It felt great that we were back to a part of the world allowing us to meet those fellows in the wild. They are not used to humans. Maybe the distance they keep is because they are afraid we would slip and fall over. Do they put up penguin signs signaling a danger from falling humans in areas of wet rocks?

My friends the Chinstrap penguins. They are definitely on the cheeky side and can be met regularly in colonies of other penguins where they try hard to be a nuisance. Wikipedia describes them as „generally considered to be the most aggressive and ill-tempered species of penguin“. That is something we can confirm although all this needs to be seen in comparison as they are still nice and cuddly and I want to take one home. Minus the smell probably, their diet is quite evident.

Once they close their eyes, they really look like straight out of a comic book.

As well as many other species, they are on the IUCN Red List, with a massive outbreak of bird flu in the last years not helping. During our expedition, we had a couple of experts on maritime life among our guides, talking about climate change and the possible impacts. It was frightening to learn that just a small difference in sea water temperature will result in the krill retreating to much deeper layers beneath the surface, getting out of reach for many other animals that live from them. Those waters are a significant part on the bottom of our food pyramid. How can people expect this would not impact humanity is a miracle to me. And still we travel as well and continue to be a part of the problem. So enough of the hypocrisy.

Back to the subject at hand and the last species I would like to introduce, the Adélie penguin. Funnily they are spelled with an accent even in the English language. They are the most widespread species of penguin, but can only be found on the coast of the Antarctic continent, so this is the first time we meet them as well. Together with the Emporer penguin, they keep further south.

The white ring around their iris makes them very relatable and they seem to show near human like facial expressions.

Especially this one.

So what do you do all day long in the Antarctic? Well, enjoy the sights and photograph them.

Wherever you look, there are a lot of things going on. Here we have a penguin working on its skills to overcome obstacles. When was the last time you climbed over a wall close to your height?

One of the best sights was penguins coming home from their hunting grounds and greeting their partners. Those dances could last for quite some time.

Caring for their chicks. After spending quite some time finding them among the crowd. There are so many of them.

Nest building is important as well. One of the major hobbies of penguins seems to include stealing stones from their neighbors‘ nests. Sometimes you could watch penguins walking over to another nest that was unguarded and they happily stole a stone. They did not really realize that the owner of the nest left it to steal a stone from their nest. Nature is all about balance.

Still it looks like some of them have some sinister plans.

Come on. There is no way this penguin is not planning to take over the world. Might actually be an improvement.

Then I found this fellow. Looked like either he got seasick as well or the last fish was bad. Hard to say. I really felt sympathetic for it.

Still penguins were not the only subject of our interest. Another subject of interest was the many seals, most of them lying around in groups.

Some of those groups looked highly densely packaged. Cold and hard ground? Likes to snuggle?

Whatever the reason, the seals invested significant energy to climb on top of each other. Although it seems that those down below are not necessarily agreeing to their comrade’s ambitions.

I’m very sure that under water, they are zipping around like there is no tomorrow, but on land, I feel a great urge to lie down next to them and take a nap.

But not all seals are interested in only lying around. Especially not the fur seals. They have another mission, which is to look majestic. There is no other animal anywhere on the world that is as majestic as a fur seal. Bald eagle? Lion? Forget it, this is the real deal.

I love those fellows. But there is no snuggling with them. They bite! And not just a little nibbling, they can easily relieve you of a finger that you might still like for other purposes.

I already mentioned I’m not a birder. But once in a while you find one of them on the ground and especially the large skuas are extremely impressive.

Unfortunately for the penguins, the reason to find a skua on the ground typically is that they try to kill and eat one of the chicks. Definitely a gruesome sight, even if you have to remember stuff like circle of life and so on. Yes, I made pictures of that and no, I’m not showing them here.

Finally one of the best sights is the Antarctic landscape. When we visited, it was late summer in the southern hemisphere, meaning the sun never really settled. Giving ample of opportunity for incredibly impressive views over ice and snow. Sleep is overrated anyway.

We traveled a lot through narrow channels in between the many islands you will find on the Antarctic Peninsula. Most of them covered with many floating ice sheets.

To my surprise, it wasn’t as barren and lifeless as I thought it would be. The amount of wildlife you could see everywhere was remarkable. It sometimes felt like it was difficult to find some ice floe without a penguin on it.

Having been part of the many glaciers and the general ice shield of the Antarctic, the ice came in many different states, sometimes every incredibly clear depending on how much pressure was applied throughout the thousands of years of existence. Scientist will be able to learn a lot about our past just analyzing those layers.

Again, that is a reminder that we need to take care of such environments and our world in general. I don’t want to think about a world where there is no place for a penguin any more to stand around and just enjoy the scenery.

Granted, they never really seem to relax a lot away from their colonies. They moved around a lot.

If the environment allows, they will zip around on their bellies.

Getting into the water is no small feat for them, though. This is where they have to fear attacks by predators.

Above the water, penguins and their sworn enemies like this leopard seal don’t care much for each other.

Hah! Got you. Not a penguin. That would be an Antarctic shag, also called an imperial cormorant or a king cormorant. As you might have realized already, everything in the Antarctic is majestic.

Then we have the big fellows. Please do not call them fish. We were granted the opportunity to see many of them, luckily their numbers are getting back up after most of the hunting essentially stopped.

Group picture with a raft of penguins and whales. Not sure what their meeting was all about.

No landscape without clouds. Blue skies are boring. Although I must confess that sometimes blue skies can be associated with good weather and calm waters. So for landlubber like me, I’m not averse of having blue skies when getting to or from a location. But upon arrival, I prefer clouds. On this voyage, we have been incredibly lucky with the weather, though. It was neither too cold nor too windy and that meant we could do excursions and landfall with the small zodiacs a lot.

Because making landfall in a penguin colony is the pinnacle of such a visit to the Antarctic. Being surrounded by not just a few animals, but well over a million of them will blow your mind. If it doesn’t, then there might not be a lot that could be blown – in such a case, please stay at home.

We were able to visit a few of the larger colonies. Yes, it was noisy and smelly. Actually very smelly. Once of those visits included a lot of wind that blew the droppings of the penguins in our direction and there was no way avoiding it. Back in the cabin we learned what that meant. Phew, we went under the shower with all our clothing still on and it took days until the smell turned down. Or our noses just stopped recognizing it.

The brown areas are the actual colony. This is where they breed and nest. And take a shit, which is providing the explanation for the brown color. The color is actually so distinctive that it is the major indicator for a colony on satellite imagery. Many of those colonies are hard to find because there are not that many humans around to look out for them.

Technically there are rules on how much distance you have too keep to the animals. No doubt, it is a no go to enter those brown areas, which will certainly disturb them. But if you keep clear of those areas you will find the penguins being quite relaxed about you. It is actually quite hard sometimes to keep a distance to them because they will come fairly close to you and there is no backing away – they are all around you and some are fairly curious.

Still the same colony. Everything around is covered in penguins.

Such a visit is a great opportunity to witness their behavior up close. Feeding time is certainly one of the most important parts of family life for them.

And although coming back and greeting your partner is of utmost importance, you can see that the chick being quite hungry is not going unnoticed.

Now on to the action shots. Certainly one of the main subjects for all photographers is the penguins coming out of the water.

Photography is actually quite difficult. There is so many of them and they appear everywhere and nowhere.

It looks very chaotic, providing ample of opportunity for some great shots.

This fellow does not seem so convinced about the water temperature. Too cold?

Others seemed more enthusiastic. Running around is fun.

But we cannot have that, yes? It is just too dangerous to slip and fall down, probably kinking a feather. So some are paying attention and provide pool supervision.

And still accidents happen.

Once you find a good spot for a photo, there is typically some experienced penguins that will help you making your shot great.

I’m quite sure that this fellow worked with National Geographic or the BBC before.

Posing for the camera came very natural for it, obviously it trained before. Although I had to provide some instructions, this was just a little too theatrical.

Perfect!

Here we see a rare species, the sometimes headless penguin.

Just doing some landscape photography? No way, there is always a penguin good for a photobomb.

No doubt, it was a lot of fun for us. Why we go to such cold and remote places? Well, that is it.

One of those ice sheets is now my Windows background for the undefined moment and I also used that picture as the header of this travelogue. To remind me every day why I need to work hard, as it is the means to get to visit those places and to enjoy the presence of so many penguins.

Yes, I adopted a penguin in the Zurich zoo to ensure that people have the opportunity to see those animals up close as well. No, I’m not allowed to give it a name, I pay for the fish. Which is absolutely ok for me, they do a great job (both the zoo and the penguins).

One of the toughest jobs in writing such a travelogue is down selecting the pictures I would like to show. But because I’m one of the most frequent visitors on my website myself, I take my personal preference and that is to have lots of them.

Still this is just a few of the thousands of pictures I took. Which is the reason for such a travelogue sometimes appearing much later. Postprocessing is a lot of effort.

Raincloud in the back, iceberg in the front with a few penguins scattered around on it? Checks all my boxes.

Hah! Got you again. Animal on the left of the iceberg is another cormorant.

I don’t think I will tire soon about seeing all those penguins.

But sometimes you get some extra luck. This is a rare sight. I mean it, there is only very few pictures of such discolored penguins. So the beige and white one is super special. I immediately recognized how important that moment was when I saw it. So I was faced with an important choice. Take the picture or call out to my girlfriend so that she could see it as well. I did not hesitate one millisecond and turned around to get her attention. So we both could look at the animal and witness the moment. Which did not last long, it vanished into the see just a few seconds after. Still incredibly overwhelming, even without the shot taken.

But where is that picture coming from? Well, I made some shots of the beach before I noticed that animal. Back on the ship I was extra careful to have a very close look at every picture I made that day and yes! There it was.

Last day on board of the ship is typically an evening with all photographers coming together and each sharing three of their shots. I only had this one and before showing, I told everybody that I have a magic trick… I can make everybody go back to their pictures again in search for one special penguin. Funnily Yves, the photographer that took the famous picture of a yellow penguin was on board as well, working as one of the guides. He confirmed that this was a one-in-a-million occurrence. And recently we learned that after his picture of the yellow penguin, he got the shot on an all black one. Just… wow.

Back to the Polar Pioneer.

Although Antarctica is quite a hostile place for humans, there are several permanent bases, mostly for scientific reasons. We passed Marambio Station, a permanent one run by Argentina and we could actually see some activity. Apparently they received provisions from a large icebreaker that was close. This station actually even has an airfield suitable for wheeled landing, the first one established on the continent. It is not the place usually used for the charter flights for the cruises, though. Those arrive much further north at Teniente Rodolfo Marsh Martin Airport on King George Island. Tempting.

Here is the icebreaker itself. Definitely much larger than the Polar Pioneer. Not sure about her name, but my bet would be that is the Almirante Irizar, belonging to the Argentine Navy. We met her twice, once at this station, the other time in one of the channels, but both times she was further away and I could not read her name.

I thought those penguins would be the stars in this travelogue. An emperor penguin chick. Turned out they are rare to find, their colonies are inaccessible and hard to locate and they spend most of their time out on the open sea once they are old enough. They are now considered to be included in the Endangered Species Act and if letting them alone helps in any way, I’ll happily skip any opportunity.

Still we found a few on ice floes.

Looking at this one, there was a nagging thought, though. Could it be those are remotely controlled animatronics?

Time to take a look at the zodiacs. Small and kind of uncomfortable little rubber boats. But incredibly sturdy and reliable so that they bring you where you want to be and safely back to the ship as well. Typically we had 8 to 10 people on board which is a lot of fun once everybody starts using their bigger lenses. Luckily most photographers can agree to some discipline on how to handle everybody’s wish for a good picture.

This picture is showing the boarding procedure. Usually the captain managed to maneuver the ship to a position that blocked the zodiacs from wind and waves, but sometimes boarding and deboarding was challenging. The crew was very professional, but there is always some risk. What we are doing here has an expiration date, at one point we will not be physically fit enough any more to participate in such an expedition. Unfortunately it also took some time until our income was sufficient to pay for such a trip, so that leaves a window of opportunity of only a few years. Sure, I could save the money for retirement or play it safe and not go for things this extreme. But I want to have lived before I die and I consider it an immense honor to be given the opportunity and feel an obligation to make the best out of all of what I try to accomplish. I can really recommend listening to what Richard Dawkins talks about in Nightwish’s „Greatest Show on Earth“.

But until then, I hope there is penguins.

Well, and other animals obviously. Like this Weddell seal. Tough guys and fairly large, they can reach a size of over three meters in length. But they look super cute.

Snow Petrel? Ivory Gull? White bird that the camera was able to focus on is sufficient for me.

Yeah, we know those ones.

The importance of getting out in the zodiacs is pretty simple to explain. There is no other way that brings you this close to a whale or any other of the species that we met. Especially if you have one of the world’s leading experts on whales as a guide. He was able to position the zodiac pretty precisely in the path of this whale, those pictures are not taken with a long tele lens. Even more impressively, the whale passed our vessel just a little bit below it and I could watch it from above. Takes some time until 28 meters of whale pass by. The experience is another one that was just incredible, but that seemed to become the norm on this trip.

People often ask me why I buy new cameras. I actually don’t buy them just because I have a bad case of gear acquisition syndrome. Well, I have, but that is not the point. This picture is one of the reasons I pulled the trigger on the Canon R1 as my new tool for such regions in the future. It offers pre-capture and that means it will give me 20 pictures from before I press the shutter button. Enough so that such a picture will show the penguins as they just emerge from the water. A feature like this is actually making me quite excited about new technology. Although I fear that my hard disks will need to store even more pictures from a trip like this.

But a bigger chance at getting a picture like this is what I’m looking for.

I did thousands of pictures of the penguins, still this one is rare. Not that the penguins were not training sufficiently for the next Olympics, quite the opposite, they demonstrated their skills in synchronized swimming often enough. But usually I was too slow to capture the precise moment. On the other hand, this one is making me feel proud a little that I was able to get it. Apart from the penguin on the far right that was clearly a newbie and not fully in sync with the others. More training required.

No landfall for this colony, we watched it from the zodiacs.

Which was a great perspective as well as it allowed to consume the panorama a little better. Remember, brown area is where the actual colony is. So here it is on top of those hills, seems like penguins enjoy a good view as well.

But you need to waddle for a little distance in between colony and sea. Amazing how many are going back and forth. By the way, if you believe you can keep up with them going up or downhill, you are mistaken. They are surprisingly fast.

So this set of action shots has been taken from the zodiac.

Not sure I would like to take a bath in those waters, though. Yes, some people participated in what is called the polar dip, but I’m getting to an age where I need to be concerned if I would get a heart attack from the shock.

The snowy sheathbills are the scavengers of the Antarctic regions and can be found close to most of the colonies.

They are incredibly curious and will peck at everything they see, checking if it is edible. Their sharp beaks will poke through even the tough material of our equipment, leaving holes in what requires to be waterproof. Not good.

This one was checking out my bag. Trying to shoo it away was difficult, it certainly did not want to respect my authority. Probably it realized that I did not have much of it.

Here is another topic that even stirred scientific interest in form of a study done by Hiroyuki Tajima and Fumiya Fujisawa from Kochi University, Japan. The paper is titled „Projectile Trajectory of Penguin’s Faeces and Rectal Pressure Revisited“ (PACS numbers: 01.40.-d,47.85.Dh,87.15.La) and it concludes that the safety zone around a penguin needs to be 1.34 meters. So now you know. And the smug look on the face of the penguin at the end is priceless.

Friendly whale is waving at us. It has a point, up to now, there is an imbalance in this travelogue with not enough wales shown yet.

So let me change this.

On several zodiac excursions we were out hunting for those large mammals. Nope, no weapons, we were out there just for pictures obviously.

At least in this region, the whales seemed quite gentle with us being visitors to their home.

They could easily topple one of our boats, but even though they came pretty close, it felt like they are more curious than defensive.

I’m quite sure that all this is about mutual respect. You have to observe them and make sure that you do not interfere with them hunting. We observed several times how they did bubble net feeding, which is quite interesting and shows how intelligent those animals are as it requires quite some coordination. Once we realized we were accidentally in the middle of such a circle, with bubbles suddenly appearing all around the zodiac. In such a moment, you do not wait for a picture of the whale appearing underneath your boat. You get out of the way. Fast!

During one of those tours I saw so many flukes that I started to look out for whales training in synchronized swimming as well. Probably that was what the penguin-whale meeting at the beginning of the travelogue was all about. Eventually they discussed the rules for their next competitive swimming event.

Nope, not the eye of the whale. Just a large whale barnacle. Still looked funny.

Getting so close to the whales was a lot of fun, although at times the weather conditions were fairly bad with a lot of snow. Doesn’t matter, but a good reminder that your equipment should provide some protection with cameras and lenses having good weather sealing.

Up close you could see the many scars several of the whales had. Not sure about the root causes for them. Human inflicted by a ship’s propeller? Fight with a giant squid? In occasional need for a good back scratch?

Very hard to say what happens in the dark and cold habitat below the surface of the oceans. We really don’t know much about those regions. A shame, we need more scientists.

The whale’s fluke is actually highly individual for every one of them and surprisingly colorful.

Yes, we were close. Sometimes it felt like I could reach out and touch a whale. I never felt in danger, though.

The closer we have been to the whales, the more careful they seem to act.

Well, eventually they just wanted the pictures to become good, just like the highly professional penguins, yes?

So we got some amazing opportunities to meet the whales.

Not joking, typically you could see the whale breathing before they go for a dive. This was sneezing right when it went under water, resulting in this sudden water fountain.

Still one of my preferred subjects was the landscapes that were revealed before us.

Every photographer will agree, the most important part of creating a good picture is to understand and control light. If you cannot control the light, then you need to go hunt for it. Quite like finding the Aurora Borealis, it is no easy task but very rewarding if you are successful. And indeed it was a successful trip for this subject as well.

We witnessed the sun caressing the wild and untamed coasts of uninhabited lands.

Unexpected in a world of black and white, the Antarctic boasts fantastic colors sometimes.

Sometimes it became hard to select the correct color temperature when post-processing the pictures. Cold and blue ice structures in the front, warm and golden glow in the back. Not just the camera is confused sometimes, the landscape is providing strange experiences.

Those pictures are taken deep into the night. The sun never goes below the horizon, but it can go very low, so it makes sense to get up sometimes in the night to see what sights wait for you. This expedition is one of those where you need a vacation afterwards to get some actual rest.

So you get less sleep. Nobody really cared on board of the Polar Pioneer. Even in the middle of the night you would find passengers that enjoy the sights. The landscape is sometimes surreal, so having some company is a good reminder that you are not dreaming. Although sometimes I dream in CinemaScope.

During the day, the sun is also never high up in the sky. Depending on what you want to photograph, reflections can provide both beauty or nuisance.

And then there are moments when you start drifting off into worlds of fantasy. Somebody had a lot of fun doing copy and paste with those clouds.

You see the face, do you?

The castle on top of the mountain?

Well, this is just bizarre. In a good way.

One location that we visited was called an iceberg graveyard. It felt like a labyrinth of icebergs which competed with each other to give off strange impressions.

Above the water, the shapes could range from chaotic to being strangely symmetric.

Even with all the equipment I brought, I forgot to bring a circular polarizer filter. Its powers to reduce surface reflections would have been extremely welcome to show that the icebergs continued to be strange below the waterline. I always keep a list of things during an expedition to track what I would have needed. Typically I make some dealerships happy immediately after such an adventure, I don’t wait with such acquisitions.

Sometimes you also find errors in the matrix. Somebody forgot that icebergs need to be partially submerged.

Well, this seal is clearly pointing me to get back to animal photography.

So we come to one of my favorites. The leopard seal.

A top order predator and feared by all animals around. Its only natural enemy is the orca. They have been described to us as being aggressive, shy and dangerous as it might be possible that they could confuse a human sitting on the side of a zodiac with the outline of a penguin. The guides told us that we could consider ourselves lucky if we see one or two during the voyage from a distance and that they would get back into the water fast once we get closer.

Which brings me to one of my favorite pictures from this trip. Leopard Seal that is drooling in its sleep and didn’t give a sh*t about us getting closer.

Yes, at one point it looked up to see who is visiting.

It posed for a few pictures and then went back to sleep. Shy animals? Not really. Impressive? Definitely. We could see some of them swimming past our zodiac and their speed is incredible. But again, it felt like they have been more curious than anything else. We saw many of them.

Switching species we go from large predator to cute offspring. About time we come back to penguins, yes?

It was a time of the year when we could see a lot of chicks, still clinging to their parents.

Always being hungry.

No, those pictures are actually taken with a telephoto lens. The territory belongs to those animals and as visitors, you have to be respectful.

They will still make sure you get great pictures.

You get to see funny interactions in between the penguins as well. This is the neighbors visiting the new mother for providing some advice.

Then combine the penguins with some great light.

Just to demonstrate the sheer size of the mountains right at the border to the sea. You saw the Polar Pioneer down there, yes?

One of the more remarkable things we could learn was that sometimes the colonies literally had suburbs.

Penguins traveled in between those parts of the colonies on so called penguin highways. How many times must they have walked on that path to create such a deep indentation. Incredible. Please remember that if you get the opportunity to visit them as well, don’t cross or go into those highways, that will create difficult obstacles for them. We don’t want aliens to destroy our streets as well, it would be annoying, yes?

One of the other rules in the Antarctic is that you don’t touch anything and you don’t take anything home as well. Not even such a feather. So I left it on the ground and enjoyed that I could take another nice picture.

There were so many pictures that were worth taking. Two seagulls on bizarre ice formations.

Same seagulls, same ice formation, different perspective. You could spend hours on any given location and find great opportunities for pictures.

Especially when the light was playing along.

And oh yes, it did.

It was the last landfall that we made during the expedition. We were brought to a small island and climbed its one mountain. Naturally to find some penguins on top that were enjoying the scenery as well. The climb was not exactly that easy, I really wonder how they made it. Their endurance is fantastic.

What can you say. It is easy to see the reason why they do it. Definitely penguins have very good taste.

So a picture of the Polar Pioneer from a mountain in the Antarctic. Nice.

But even here, the land is not untouched by humans. Luckily there are no beach loungers or umbrellas with a ton of noisy people that think that getting a tan and then getting drunk is desirable for a vacation. Secretly I’m happy that my opinion about this seems to be an exception, leaving the places I like to visit more barren and with less people so I can enjoy all this with just a select few. Unfortunately it becomes more and more difficult to really get off the map.

Before I fall into melancholy that I’m not living in a time of great discovery any more, the friendly penguin is pointing me back into showing some more pictures, but we are getting closer to the end of the travelogue.

Time to revisit the majestic fur seal. At least the junior team.

No worries, they have mastered the art of being majestic already.

As they are younger, it still seems to be a team sport.

But undeniable, they are the best there is at what they do.

Not too far away, we found this Weddell Seal that mastered the art of mimicry. Well, the algae on the ground really rubbed off. At what temperature can it wash its fur to get rid of those stains?

It does not seem to be too concerned about that subject. Likely it will wash out with the next swim.

Still no urge in doing so, the seal was going for a nap first. Not before it gave us a side eye as a reminder to keep quiet now.

So we went to find another seal. You see it? It has certainly seen us.

Elephant seal. Quite a relaxed fellow as well.

I really tried to learn a bit more about bird photography as well. I’m not going to be a master, but I got one or the other acceptable shot.

Bird in flight. If you are able to frame the bird so that it fills the complete picture, then you made it to mastery.

I keep to birds running around. Easier, but also photogenic.

Not that I don’t try to get a close up.

Best a close up with great light.

Yeah, that’s it. My bird money shot. Not too shabby.

Still I’m more interested in our special friends. The Arctic Tern. Which can be found in the Antarctic. Where it turns into the Antarctic Tern. Because the Arctic Tern is migrating from their breeding grounds in the Antarctic to the Arctic and back every year, they are the record holders for the longest migrations in the animal kingdom. Making them Arctic Terns and Antarctic Terns at the same time. A little confusing.

But meaning they have the traveler’s gene as well. Great candidate for my heraldic animal along with the oystercatcher. Fiep.

But it is about time to leave this remarkable place. Which granted me with more than 10000 pictures, several hours of video footage and impressions that I will hopefully never forget.

„It ain’t over until the fat penguin sings.“ In modern times, the proverb has been reinterpreted by switching the penguin with a lady, I have no idea why. Maybe people do no visit penguins often enough and have no opportunity to enjoy the marvel of a penguin performing one of their most beautiful songs.

All jokes aside, it was truly a fantastic journey. One of those voyages packed with experiences that are simply life changing. We consider ourselves lucky that we had the opportunity to travel along on this photography expedition, seeing not just a few, but literally hundreds of thousands of penguins. We encountered fearless predators that were only mildly interested in our presence. Curious whales. Seals, birds and many other animals, proving that even one of the most inhospitable places on earth is full of life that we have to respect and take care of. We are privileged and thankful for such adventures. Especially because this was not our first encounter with penguins in the wild. And yet… we will see how inaccurate „Once in a lifetime“ can still become… all this started with a mail in our inbox and well, we might have received another one.