Calm Water and Whales

Well, I told you we saw whales and could prove it.  Here we are motoring through dead calm waters in the narrow passageways between islands.  The water was perfectly reflecting the mountains and glaciers as we passed on this easy leg of the journey. 

As we entered into a wider bay we were visited by this little guy.  He is a humpback whale, I am guessing about 40 feet long.  He came right up to our boat and circled us for about 15 minutes.  Sometimes he came up within 8 feet of the boat and just looked at us.  He also did some passes under the boat and rolled over as he went beneath us. 

Here he is giving us the 'fish eye'.  Even our seasoned skipper and mate were amazed.  This is an encounter you can't get on a cruise ship (although I believe they have flush toilets and running water).

When I process my photos I will have more shots on my website.  In all, we saw whales about half of the days we were sailing in Antarctica.