Antarctica: Touching The Continent At Almirante Brown!

The expedition company, Quark Expeditions, that I traveled with to Antarctica provided two excursions a day once we got to the Antarctic peninsula. For four days, there would be one excursion in the morning and one in the afternoon. But it's all dependent on weather conditions, if we actually get to do them. 

They have an "hopeful" itinerary in mind when we get on the ship... But that can all change at a moment's notice. (Like when we had to detour for a day to King George Island, to drop off an injured crew member.) But they make every effort to be flexible and move things around, in order to get us to see all the spots that are ideal. Like the first stop where we actually touched the continent... Almirante Brown.

The terrain at Almirante Brown is a bit rough though. As we rode the zodiac boat over to the continent, we were prepped that not everyone may want to actually get off the boat and visit it.

Sure enough, we had two people in our boat who simply got out of the zodiac, had their picture taken with them standing on the landing, then they were back in the boat and taken to the ship.

But not me! We had plenty of Gentoo penguins to see playing!

How fun they are to watch, as they waddle around with their arms out... Take teeny steps in the snow...

They were very fun, walking through their "penguin highway." Little footprints in the shape of penguin feet.. Hundreds of them...

But penguins weren't the only bird we saw on Almirante.  And we did actually see some greenery...

Beautiful moss! And a gorgeous bird. Have no idea what kind of bird though.

And of course... We had wonderful views of the glaciers and icebergs on the ride back to the ship. Deep blue crevasses.

I'm very grateful that we got to see so much.