My mind is wandering toward the cold waters of Antarctica this evening. I thought that I would share two of my favorite pictures from the Antarctic cruise that I took several years ago. They are also the two pictures that I entered into a photography contest on the cruise ship. Unfortunately, they did not win a prize.

The first picture here is a small remnant of an iceberg that was floating near the ship while we were in Paradise Bay, Antarctica.
I love the different shades of blue and white in this picture. The small reflection of the ‘Swan’ in the water. I also love the swirl of water around the ice and the lifting of the water as the wake of the ship passed it by. The more I look at this picture, the more little touches I notice. The ripples, the shadows, the reflections from the sky and from the larger ice bergs that are around. All of these lend to the complexity of this simple picture.

The picture also makes me feel cool. This is needed as the temperature was near 100 degrees when I left the office this afternoon. A bit uncharacteristic for October. I am definitely looking forward to cooler weather later this week.

The second picture was taken from a bit of a distance. Fortunately I have a good zoom on my little camera and also good stabilization.I was able to snap a picture of an Orcinus orca fluke. Most of you will know this whale as the killer whale or orca, but it is also known as the blackfish. We passed by a pod of the whales as we were sailing by Melchior Island shortly after leaving Paradise Bay. As we were sailing along you would occasionally hear people shouting when they would spot whales. Then everyone would grab their cameras and head to the decks to watch them. We also passed several groups of small boats of whale watchers. I am not sure I would want to be out in a small boat near one of these.

I also love the placid water with just the small ripples and the way that the water reflects the beautiful blue of the sky. It was a peaceful sail as we headed away from Antarctica toward Ushuaia, Argentina.

There are actually two whales in this picture. You can barely see the back of the second whale to the right of the fluke.

I hope you enjoyed these two pictures. They bring back some good memories for me.

Steven