Quite a bit ahead of schedule but with the weather being favorable, our Expedition Leader Laurie brought us down to cross the Antarctic Circle at 66°33’47.5 South this morning. We got a call on the intercom to join everyone on the deck of the ship. They had Mimosas (with “sparkling wine” since apparently the word “champagne” offended some of the French guests). Laurie read a speech as we sailed on and I took a panorama of the spot.

They also took this opportunity to provide the Polar Plunge, which of course I had to do. Not many people get to say that they’ve jumped in the icy waters of Antarctica, and fewer yet can say that they’ve done it south of the Circle. As expected, the water was incredibly cold and I quickly swam back to the boat, where we were greeted with a towel and a shot of whiskey.

After lunch, we had our next Zodiac excursion just north of Adelaide Island. They also surprised us by landing the Zodiac on some sea ice and treating us to hot chocolate with Baileys, while we stood on the ice. That was pretty incredible. The ice here is just incredible. So many different shapes and sizes and colors. I could upload a thousand photos of just icebergs but I picked just a few of my favorites below. We also saw our first up-close view of the Crabeater Seal, the most abundant seal species in the world.