Christmas Eve day we continued down the east coast of Snow Hill Island. We were treated to spectacular ice bergs, seals, sunshine and, even more penguins.
Captain Marvin, on the bridge, was bashing little bergs; pushing aside big bergs and; making rapid maneuvers to avoid collisions with larger than ship size bergs when he spotted a large platform of sea ice. The call went out and the first group of zodiacs were quickly launched.
We had not expected to see these majestic penguins this far north. To again quote my Exploring Antarctica Map "Emperor penguins are a species adapted to extremes. The tallest and heaviest of all penguins at 45 inches and 50-100 pounds, emperors are sleek, streamlined, and strong. They reside only on the Antarctic continent. They treck as much as 75 miles from the sea across pack ice to their colonies. Emperors are deep divers, going as much as 1,800 feet on dives of 20 minutes."
More Emperor Penguins!
Reaching a length of 98 feet and weighing up to 199 tons, Blue Whales are the largest animal known to ever exist.
We saw Emperor Penguins on different ice flows as we sailed along.
To allow the crew (primarily Philippine) to celebrate Christmas as a group, we had an early, Traditional, Philippine Christmas dinner consisting of traditional foods including whole roasted pigs and Philippine sides and desserts.