With unlimited bubbly and friends old and new, I didn’t write each day as is my usual habit. So this post comes to you from NYC and its title is what I’ve settled on when describing my trip. I’ll start by trying to give you a sense of scale.

This first image shows our 10 story expedition ship next to an iceberg probably 5x its height. Just think about that. It broke away from the shoreline, separated from the rocky mountains, in this enormous shape and height. It’s grand. Everything I saw in Antarctica exists on this grand scale. (And yes, I see the profile of a face too.)

So as you look at the images in the gallery that follows, keep in mind that you are viewing shoreline mountains reaching nearly 8,000 feet and that when you float up next to them in a zodiac (a really nice dinghy) you are floating up beside mountains of that scale.

Aside from the scale, it is also hard to capture just how blue the glacial ice is or how white the snow. With a DSLR perhaps I could have but I traveled with just my iphone. The views, the colors, the lack of color – all of it felt majestic.

A little info about the mountains. The mountain range on the Antarctic Peninsula is thought to be the continuation of the Andes Mountains. The Andes start as far north as Columbia before reaching down through Chile, submerging under the Drake and then re-emerging on the Antarctic Peninsula. For that reason the mountains on the peninsula are also called Antarctandes, aka the Antarctic Peninsula Cordillera. Below is a map of Antarctica showing the various mountain ranges and for the hikers among us, a link to a website that tells you more about hiking there. Perhaps one of you will hike Mount Vinson? It’s a mere 16,050 feet. For me, I’ll stick with birding and bubbly, and the occasional plunge. More on that next.

My voyage started near the Vernadsky base (UKR), proceeded north along the Danco Coast stopping at Brown Station (ARG) in Paradise Bay, heading through the Gerlache Straight and around to an interior cove on the lee side Anvers Island. From there we went up to South Shetland’s Livingston Island and then back up through the Drake. We had six days on the peninsula before our return on the dreaded Drake.