Cape Lookout, Elephant Island

This was the sea ice in the Antarctic Sound that we encountered on our way to Brown Bluff on the Antarctic Peninsula. Our plans to venture further south into the Weddell Sea were thwarted by how much ice was still present. In the center right a few Adelie Penguins are visible. The brown stains on the ice are penguin guano, evidence of how many penguins use the ice as areas of rest and protection from predators (mainly Leopard seals and Orcas) when they are hunting for krill their major food source.

Brown Bluff is on the northernmost point of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is the remnants of a volcano that erupted approximately a million years ago under the glacial ice and eventually rose 2,000 feet above sea level