Our Trip to Antarctica & Pics...
 

We just returned from a two week trip to Antarctica...some of my Fave penpals and buds here, were aware of it, but I thought I would bore all of your fannies to tears with a huge batch of pics of our trip. Rather than trying to C&P a dozen pics at a time per post, I tossed them up on Flickr, linked below.

I edited very heavily and carefully, trying to avoid the slide show anesthesia that generally prevails, :rofl: . I shot nearly 8 gigs of pics and narrowed this show down to 120 ish pics, in different groups. It is not an exact tour of our trip, but close enough to get the idea.

We made the journey with my wife's father and his 2nd wife, and it is an arduous trip, time and distance. It is the Bottom of the World and the Last Continent; all I can say is it is simply awesome and nearly indescribable. The scenes and views and immense scale of this continent are simply beyond our usual comprehension. It was a once in a lifetime trip and I'm very glad we did it. :thumbup:

I've tossed up a batch of "picked pics" here, but my trip collection is really worth a look, imo. :D

Enjoy the collection of our pics in Flickr and thanks for looking...

Best Regards,
Ol'Uncle motordavid & Veronica


FlickR Link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/4527537...7603779297169/

amazing.

that much ice looks naked without some vodka poured on it ;) :thumbup:

Sweet! Never realized those glaciers were that nice blue color. One of the places that is in my list to go to. Thank you for sharing!

wow, fantastic photos.

Thanks for sharing, mD :thumbup:

You shouldn't have rammed that Japanese whaler though... lucky for you the Aussies read X5world and bailed you out ;)

Absolutely awesome. Some of your shots look like they should be on the cover of National Geographic. I checked out that area in Google Earth while you were gone but didn't see your boat. ;)

Thanks for sharing the pics - just incredible.

Absolutely amazing pictures. What an experience. :bow:

FANTASTIC :thumbup:

Unfookinbelievable....

stunning

Wow! How "cool" is that!!! Great pics!!!

Thanks for sharing, MD!

Uncle OleMo'

Breathtaking pictures..specially of the baby penguin..you are getting as good as me with that cam (j/k).

Those pics took my breath away. I cannot imagine being there in person. Thanks for sharing.

Wow. My fav is the zodiac shot - it's a stunning image.

Beauties 'Bro! All of 'em. Glad you are back safe.:thumbup:

That's an amazing set of pictures!

simply out of this world great pics!!

Nice pics! Thanks for sharing MD :thumbup:

What a trip! Glad you enjoyed. BTW does penguin taste like chicken?:rofl:

:wow:

Good Golly Mr. Motor! Wasn't it cold enough for you up here? ;)

Those are some absolutely fabulous pictures! Thank you so much!

amazing pics. do you have any in hi rez or unresized, I would love to use one on my MBP background.

:thumbup:

Fantastic shots, MD. Glad that you decided to go after all, that it all worked out, and that it was as good as you described. Good to have you back.

Thanks, Gang, for all the props and kind words!

I do have all the pics in orig. high res files on my drive and
saved on mem. sticks. Let me know your email by PM and I'll
zing them to you or, tell me how to attach to a PM back to
you.

Thank you again for looking at my post and at the FlickR link...
the immense scale of the coastlines and coves we chugged through
and viewed are simply impossible to convey in a photo.
BR,mD&V

Beautiful - your photographic skills are amazing!

Very amazing and breath taking... the penguins are totally cute too. Sad to think how much of that ice is melting and how antarctica is shrinking according to science. But anyhoo... those pics are great, thank you for sharing MD.

So I'm not sure if you said it already, just how cold was it? Low and high if it was ever announced? Anyone try sticking a hand or finger in the water :)

Thanks, G...Temps: we had daily air temps that ranged from low 20s F, to a high one day of maybe 42 on that rare sunny day at Elephant Island chugging through "Iceberg Alley", for an hourish. Nights, while never totally dark, were in the 20s Farenheit. It was the wind on most days, that really cut through you, esp. on the windy side of the boat.

The Southern Ocean, around the Antarctic Peninsula, averaged about 29 degrees F. I put my hand in a few times in the Zodiac, just to feel it: it was numbingly cold. The Zodiac drivers, (most were renaissance men with amazing backgrounds), said we had about 3 mins max before unconsciousness, if we fell in; thus, the major league life vests that would inflate automatically when immersed in sea water, that they made us wear on any Zodiac ride or shore excursion.

Interestingly, most of the hard core Antarctic scientist types said that any "melting" thus far, of the shelf ice, seemed to be cyclical or within the std deviation, though they all felt it was affected to some degree by the climate change. The interior ice sheets, in the hard core ages old glacier producing areas, are 3.5 miles thick and actually deflect the continental plates they rest on...a factoid tossed around is that if all the ice on that continent were to melt the sea level would rise 200-250 feet.

There are areas in the barely scratched interior that receive less than 1/10th inch of precipitation per year; it come as snow obviously, and is blown around and never melts, until thousands of years later it turns up at the end of glacier oozing into the ocean...from whence all those thousands and thousands of big bergs turn up.

Class dismissed, :rofl: .
BR,mD

Nice! Pretty HARDCORE Motor! Looks breathtaking!

Thats amazing. Great shots! Thats a trip i'd like to take while I still can...

Isn't it "summer" down there?

Absolutely phenomenal pics! I never cease to be amazed by Mother Nature.

GREAT SHOTS !!!

Looks like a lot of fun.

Hey "D" you gotta print and frame that last photo in the first group.
After haveing so many doubts that Photo has to commemorate what must habe been an unforgettable
enjoyable trip. Glad you back safe and sound and look forward to some first hand accounts of the trip. ;)

SENSATIONAL!

:iagree: with what everyone has said :)