Antarctica - Day 2 continued: "Iceberg" Alley

The continent of Antarctica is a series of very large pieces of land which are covered with an ice sheet (compared to the Arctic Circle and the North Pole which have no land, just ice). When Antarctica's ice glaciers and ice sheets meet the sea, they are subject to the destructive forces of wave action, the relative warmth of liquid water, and wind.  These weaken the ice, and parts of the glacier break off, forming icebergs.

After leaving Admiralty Bay, we cruised to Hope Bay which is in the Antarctica Sound, where we saw dozens of very large icebergs.  The definition of an iceberg is any piece of ice 16 feet or more above sea level.  Over 75% of an iceberg is hidden under water, thus the expression "the tip of the iceberg".  When you look at some of these giant icebergs, try to imagine what is under them.

The pieces of ice that are between 3 to 8 feet are called bergy bits.  A very small piece of floating ice is called a growler due to the sounds made as the ice grinds along the side of a wooden ship.  We hit a few growlers ourselves.

All ice is actually blue but our eyes can't pick up the blue color unless it's a big chunk of ice.  Most icebergs look white because we are seeing more than ice; we are seeing air bubbles.  The air reflects back all the colors of the spectrum which we perceive as white.  The bluest ice you'll see has no or few air bubbles and is very, very old ice (thousands of years old).  Oh, and one more thing:  icebergs are like snowflakes, no two are alike.

This iceberg is about 4 stories above the water at its highest point:

There are penguins on the icebergs below (the tiny dark spots).



The blue iceberg below is thousands of years old.

 
<> The iceberg below is about a mile long.