Cacophony. A good word to describe the din we were surrounded by on our Paulet Island landing. Thousands of breeding pairs of Adélie penguins have secured their patch of rocky real estate all along the shorelines and up and down the icy slopes of this island. It is a circular volcanic cone, about 1.6 km in diameter, that is found on the eastern side of the Western Antarctic Peninsula in the northwestern Weddell Sea.

Apart from this rascally brush-tailed penguin species, birding enthusiasts can also find blue-eyed shags, kelp gulls, and snowy sheathbills. We saw an Antarctic Fur Seal hauled out, seemingly unfazed by its loud avian neighbors.

I’d never been ashore here before. Traveling over to the Weddell Sea side of the peninsula has been a real treat; most of the Antarctic expedition ships spend their time on the opposite side of the peninsula, which is slightly more predictable weather-wise, ice-coverage wise, and has a number of established landing sites in much closer proximity to each other. From an expedition leader’s point of view, the Weddell Sea and the Antarctic Sound provide a bit more of the unknown, either exciting or frustrating, depending on their particular perspective and perhaps how long they’ve been onboard (ha).

Our expedition leader’s name is Claudia, ad she has a wonderfully calm yet authoritative way of running the show. The rest of the expedition team is extremely knowledgeable about numerous facets of Antarctic geology, glacialogy, biology, and ecology, and even though I’ve been down here a few times for my own fieldwork, I’ve never before had the pleasure of being entirely a guest. I’m trying to take advantage of this fact by picking their brains as often as I can.

The day was capped off with an exquisite sunset; the kind that you might only sea once in a lifetime (due to the fact that there are not many places you can see the beautiful explosion of pinks, organges, and purples lighting up the faces of gargantuan icebergs and heartbreakingly beautiful glaciers, all whilst whales surface and contribute their own exhalations to the light show.

I’m no expert in editing or taking landscape photos, and struggle to find the right settings for the low (stunning) lighting, but I quickly realized that was far from the point and captured what I could.

Thank you, thank you, Antarctica.