Antarctica

I was lucky enough to be invited to join Dr Peter Carey's expedition to Antarctica in the 07-08 summer, based on the cruise ship MV Discovery. My official job was as a zodiac driver as pictured above. We would ferry the passengers back and forth from the ship to whatever we were looking at that day.

Buzzing into the beach on South Georgia Island

King penguins at Grytviken, South Georgia Island

Grytviken is an abandoned Norwegian whaling station. Shackleton left from here in the Endurance, and is buried here.

Female Elephant seals, Grytviken

Adele penguins, Hope bay, Antarctic Peninsula

This penguin colony was particularly comical. The penguins marched in endless processions from their nests to the sea, and vice versa. On slopes they would switch to belly sliding.

Did he jump, or was he pushed?

There was always a healthy reluctance to get in the water and face the Leopard seals. This would often result in the second penguin in line giving the one on the edge a good shove, quickly followed by a mass leaping in by as many as possible. Photo by Diana McAlpine, my sister.

Light Mantled Sooty Albatross, Drake Passage (photo: Sarah Mager)

The ocean going seabirds were truly amazing to observe, especially to a keen flyer like myself. After brushing up on my knowledge of soaring techniques I convinced Peter to let me join the on-board lecturing team of scientists and present the amazing tricks these birds use to stay aloft without flapping. Below are a couple of shots of Royal Albatrosses dynamic soaring, where the bird extracts energy from the wind by ducking into and out of the relative calm air near the surface of the sea. It is a spectacular manoevure, especially on very windy days

Royal Albatross dynamic soaring at about 100km/h

Another Royal Albatross dynamic soaring

Icebergs

The iceberg in the foreground is about the size of a 7 storey apartment block above water, the one in the back ground is about 35km long. The biggest one we saw was over 50km long. The smaller chunks were actually more interesting as the sea shaped them into amazing shapes and colours. I never got tired of looking at them. There were birds ducking in and out of the caves in this berg.

King penguins on glacial beach

This was one of many paintings I did for passengers and fellow expedition team members. A nice lady from England bought it. Such sales helped pay my substantial bar tab.