Cierva Cove

In the morning, we stopped at Cierva Cove, near the Argentine Primavera base. The base is on an island rich with lichens, so no landing, just a zodiac tour, as they want to protect these slow growing organisms.

The zodiac driver grabbed a block of glacial ice that was very clear. You could see a hexagonal pattern on it from the waves.

There was a chinstrap penguin colony in the cove and as we approached, the smell was quite a bit sharper than a Gentoo colony. They are also noisier than Gentoo penguins. Looking at the penguins, they also seem to get dirty more than the others.

There was a Weddell seal in the sea hanging around a little rock formation 50 yards from the penguins. It may have been looking for lunch.

There was lots of blue glacial ice, here is a neat one that looks like a whale spout.

We saw humpback whales up close.

The highlight was humpback whales breaching out of the water. There were around seven breaches. I’m not sure if it was the same whale each time, as there seemed to be at least three humpbacks in the area.