January 2, Monday - Antarctica

Today we arrived very early at Esperanza, the Argentinian Antarctic Research Station on the Trinity Peninsula.  One interesting bit of trivia is that Esperanza is the birthplace of the first person to be born in Antarctica (in 1977).  There have since been about 10 other births on the continent.

The station is a cluster of bright red buildings that stand out against the snow and the bare rock.

In addition to the research station there was a rookery of 125,000 pairs of Adallie Penguins in Hope Bay. We saw penguins everywhere...

in the water...

on icebergs...

and in the vast rookery.

And they were even surrounded Esperanza Station.

We also sailed up to the Depot Glacier at the end of the bay.

After leaving Esperanza we had a half day of cruising that took us by some really massive icebergs...

and on to Admiralty Bay.  

All during our time in Antarctica we often saw the crew members out on deck getting their pictures taken with the fantastic continent behind them.

For More photos of Antarctica, because, well, we just could not get enough of it:

    Antarctica

    Icebergs