icebergs – Mel's Mosaic

So we’re all adults here. We’re all in Antarctica for the experience, the education. But at some times, we acted like we were five year olds. On most of the days we were (always) on the lookout for whales, but on the 7th day of the trip they happened to be spotted right near the ship. So we were on diligent lookout for them on the zodiacs.

We got very very close to a school of 3 of them.

We would just sit there, watching, endlessly. We also just wanted the whales to jump out of the water and breach. We never had huge view of this, but still some spectacular scenes.

And when the whale would start to come up from the water, all of us would scream with excitement like little kids. It was crazy. The guides probably just rolled their eyes at us.

The rest of this day we saw some amazing icebergs and more stunning views, along with more wildlife. This day was also the Polar Plunge! Jumped into the Southern Ocean. The water temp was 32 degrees — very refreshing. We plunged in, jump right back out, ran through the mud room, had a shot of whiskey then ran upstairs and jumped into the 85 degree pool. So nice!

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A some videos:

And a summary of the day, Mar 6:

As we continued exploring the city, more cuisine came about. On the 2nd night there, we dined at Inuit Cafe (they don’t have a true website and their Facebook page doesn’t have much, which is why I went with the Trip Advisor link). It was ranked very high among local restaurants and had two of the things I’d been wanted to try — Whale Steak and Reindeer.

The restaurant was just a very local one and could get quite busy. It was one where if you don’t have a reservation you go order at the counter and they give you a number to put on your table. We had made a reservation so we could get special treatment, but I still had lots of questions about the menu, so went to the counter and just ordered there.

As mentioned, we ordered whale steak and reindeer and split each one. In Iceland we’d has a small serving of whale. It was quite tasty. This was definitely a different cut of whale and was quite tough and chewy. Not all that exciting. The reindeer was nice and lean, but a bit overcooked. Nonethless, a nice pleasant dinner of something you don’t get at home.

After dinner we had a night cruise. It started at 10:30pm, while the sun was still shining, and was just amazing. We finished around 12:00am in broad daylight. We saw amazing scenery, icebergs, sky, glaciers…words can’t describe it.