Ice floes and Coulman Island

Monday, January 23rd

On our way to Coulman Island Captain Dag and our ice navigator Capt Uli steered the ship through some rather densely packed ice floes; always a favorite to watch from deck 7 forward.

Form our balcony I spotted this lonely Adelie floe-ting by.

Upon arrival at Coulman Island The Team noticed that the pack ice there was sufficiently broken up to allow a true zodiac safari between the floes. As if being on a zodiac between the ice wasn’t enough, we also saw a seal lounging on the ice, a pair of Adelies performing, and, to top it all off: a pair of Emperor penguins, a first for us!

Weddell seal.
Adelies.
Emperors.

Before returning to the ship, our zodiac driver, Katja Riedel, in true ‘Jane Bond’ style, beached our craft on a floe so that we could all stretch our legs, make snow angels and have a snowball fight. This was the first opportunity, since leaving Hobart, we had to walk on something else than the ship – we were all ecstatic!