Woke up this morning at Brown Bluff, at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. It formed during the past 12 million years, erupting sub glacially within an englacial lake. The volcano’s original diameter is thought to have been 12-15 kilometres and probably formed by a single vent. It has steep slopes and brown/black hyaloclastick rock. A zodiac tour first where we saw lots of cute little Adelie penguins on icebergs, as well as a sleepy leopard seal and many crab-eater seals.  

Then walked on shore on slippery pebbles to see the penguin colony in action. Fabulous morning.

Saw about 25 -30 killer whales as we sailed into the Erebus and Terror Gulf before heading into the Antarctic Sound. Staff went out in a zodiac with a harpoon to get some DNA matter from as many whales as possible. Got one apparently!  

Then – an incredible event happened!!! Witnessed penguin carnage with killer whales between Andersson and Dundee Isles, chasing and ‘playing’ with poor little penguins, before killing them. Nature happening before us, not very comfortable viewing though.

We sailed through “Iceberg Alley”, where we saw the HUGE remains of tabular berg B15Y, which calved off the Ross Ice Sheet  in south Antartica and has slowly travelled east up the coast, currently settling in the Atlantic Sound.