Blue skies and more ice...

At last, good weather! The next day dawned fine and sunny and calm and found us entering the incredibly beautiful Charcot Bay, named after the father of the leader of the 1903+ French expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula. Tom Ritchie had explained that Jean-Baptiste Charcot was a true Frenchman - he provided the crew of Français and later the Pourquoi-Pas with civilised quarters and epicurean dining experiences. He was much more than an explorer who just had to be first - he plotted superb charts of where he went and conducted good scientific studies, unlike apparently, the earlier expeditions.

Tom Ritchie says there are gentoo, Adélie, and chinstrap penguins all resting on this one bergy bit.

Seen from the Orion, grease ice (sea ice starting to form), as we entered Charcot Bay.

7:30am entering Charcot Bay, threatening clouds on the mountains, but brilliant sunshine on the glacier!

The Orion plowed into a dense brash ice field near Lindblad Cove (named after the founder of the world's first expedition company, Lars-Eric) deep in Charcot Bay, and then stopped to allow what proved to be a magnificent zodiac cruise deeper into the cove, getting quite close to several huge glaciers tumbling into the water. A long string of zodiacs broke and threaded their way through the brash ice - sometimes it was quite hard to penetrate and one passenger on our zodiac asked about how we would be rescued! Shaun Powell, our zodiac captain, didn't seem too perturbed, and just said another zodiac would come to get us.

Shaun Powell (expedition leader) led the first zodiac out into our brash ice cruise.

Fine today, but it's no mean feat holding that lens steady in failing light on a rocky zodiac.

Reflections on a glacier.

A little ice pool inside this berg.

Large bergs amongst the brash ice.

Whoops! We've gone a long way.

Sunshine makes a spectacle of this ice field.

The water was green with phytoplankton, the essential food source for krill, which in turn feed the baleen whales, which is why they come here!

In the brash ice field, we saw numerous bergs with clear blue crystalline form like this one, topped with some fresh snow. Blue glacial ice is the oldest and most compressed.

The jagged progress of glaciers makes for interesting formations.

Magnificent peaks, high about Charcot Bay.

The Orion itself is deep into the brash ice.

We were treated to awesome spectacles as zodiacs plowed through the ice.

Almost all the Orion's passengers must have participated today, 10 to a zodiac.

We've used the zodiac as a mini-ice breaker to get deep into Charcot Bay.

Which way back to the Orion?

The fog on top of the mountains around Charcot Cove dissipated during the cruise leaving us with magnificant panoramas. There was no wind, but a light swell kept rippling through the ice field, gently rocking all the growlers (less than 1m out of the water) and bergy bits (bigger ones, 1-5m out of the water), making the journey quite enchanting. Probably the highlight of Antarctica so far. There were some very photogenic ice formations.

Not a bad view from the cabin?

One zodiac returns from the brash ice outing.

Tom Ritchie, longest term Lindblad naturalist, at this zodiac's helm.

A crabeater seal has highly developed teeth which it uses like baleen to filter out krill.

For reasons not so apparent, after the zodiac tour, we enjoyed Fruhschoppen with bratwurst and beer and rollicking music, a traditional German celebration. Very pleasant, and we all were lapping up the sunshine, chatting, eating and drinking on the lounge deck!

Chatting with Steve Egan, an Aussie on the staff, after the zodiac tour. He later made a presentation on icebergs.