Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

I have struggled a bit with looking at and selecting photos to continue sharing with you all. Not because I don't want to share them--I do. Photos are meant to be shared. It's just kind of hard right now to look at that other life. But I decided I could do it, with less commentary, but remembering the good times. It helps in a way that on most of these outings Dave and I were in separate groups. (For those who wonder, it's because I got ready much faster, and once dressed for outdoors in Antarctica, staying in the ship wasn't an option!) This was Day 4 along the Antarctic Peninsula, where we spent the morning doing both a landing and a zodiac cruise at Portal Point. This was a whales, seals, and snow morning! I was in the group that landed first, then cruised, and it started snowing shortly after we landed. By the time the zodiac cruise ended, it was raining, and the weather worsened enough we didn't have an afternoon outing. I'll just share the photos with mini...

Portal Point: Seals and Whales Our 4th day in Antarctica was the only one where we didn't get to do two outings, thanks to the weather. But we did get both a landing and a cruise at Portal Point, and had some special wildlife sightings. They split the group so only half of us landed at a time (due to constrained space on land), and I was in the batch that got dropped ashore first. This fantastic duo was there to greet us! Crabeater seals, which do not in fact eat crabs (they mostly eat krill) Seals are very fast and graceful in the water, but even more so than penguins they are at a disadvantage on land. Whenever we were ashore, members of the expedition staff went ahead of us with markers to show where we shouldn't go. Sometimes they wanted to keep us away from penguin rookeries or cranky seals. In this case, it was to keep us from the unstable edges of the snowfield, which dropped off 100' or so into the ocean. Being smart enough to know I don't know everything, I sta...

Zodiac cruise with icebergs--and some wildlife I'm working my way through the Antarctica photos, and I'm kind of amazed to realize from the post numbering that we've been home for 5 weeks. Still have about 5 more posts to do from Antarctica, and then I can get moving on all the hikes in Patagonia.  Today I'm featuring our Day 3 (along the Antarctic Peninsula--it was day 6 of the cruise) afternoon zodiac cruise in Andvord Bay. This was the after-lunch outing following my amazing penguin encounters .   We sailed from Neko Harbor to Andvord Bay while we lunched, and the rain stopped, to everyone's relief. We sailed past lots of these And parked about here  Pile into zodiacs and head out with Rustyn Mesdag at the helm. I snagged the seat by the bows, which can be damp but also allows for some good views. For obvious reasons, I'm not really sure who was on the boat with me!   There's not a lot of narration needed for the next 2 1/2 hours, though that doesn't ...

I promised y'all penguins, so I'm jumping over whatever land-based trips I still need to share, and going right to the world's most amazing swimming birds. Okay, and also a landscape that is a bit mind-boggling. And whales.... A bit of background: In the late afternoon of March 9, we boarded the Oceanwide Expeditions vessel Plancius in Ushuaia, Argentina. On the 12th, we woke up in Antarctica (okay, not a total surprise, and we'd seen the South Shetland Islands the day before as we steamed past). Our ship, a refitted research vessel 89 meters long, carried 114 passengers and 46 crew (including 8 guides for our adventures, and an amazing chef). That makes it a pretty small ship for a cruise, and allows for the kind of special trip this was: one where everyone could participate in all the activities and landings (all covered in the base price, BTW). Those activities included kayaking, zodiac cruises, landings, and various mountaineering activities (participation in some ...