The Antarctic is the land mass down south - a continent covered by ice, in places up to 800m thick, think whales and seals. The Arctic by comparison think North Pole is all ice surrounded by land, with polar bears, walrus and the narwhal. Unlike the Arctic no indigenous peoples live in Antarctica, just some scientists and military bases that are rarely occupied year round, due to the extremely bitter and long cold Antarctic winter. We had a calm 2 day crossing of the notorious Drakes Passage across the Southern Ocean.

Hear them here : http://weddellsealscience.com/vocals.html

Standard iceberg: At around 5 meters long you will be called an iceberg.

Little chunks: Smaller bits of ice are called bergy bits and growlers.

Tip of: Anywhere between 50% and 99% may be beneath the surface.

Largest Iceberg: Largest measured was technically called an Antarctic tabular (flat topped) iceberg 335 by 97 kilometers – that’s a huge 31,000 square kilometers in all.

Beautiful: Waves, currents, melting and refreezing, tipping over, algae and many other factors explain the various colours we saw in Antarctic icebergs. They were the unexpected wonder of our trip.

Titanic and more: Yes the famous Titanic was sunk by an Arctic iceberg but smaller denser icebergs like the growlers can be hard to spot as they can be very dark and dense enough to pierce a ship’s hull. In 2007 the tourist ship M/V Explorer hit an iceberg and sank – fortunately it sank slowly taking 15 hours to go down. All 154 souls on board were rescued from lifeboats after 5 hours adrift. Didn’t even know about that before we set out in our ship.

They are solitary and sparsely populated, little is known about their breeding behaviour but a single pup is born usually during the winter months, when any attempt to study them is hampered by the extreme weather patterns of the area. Leopard seals have spotted coats, and females may reach 4metres in length weighing in at up to 600kg. They are easily distinguished from other seals by the very large reptilian like head. With, their powerful fore flippers they may exceed speeds of 40km per hour whilst hunting for prey around the icebergs and the cold waters they inhabit.

We caught a few glimpses, saw one kill and thrash a penguin around as they do to open up the prey, tearing and ripping at it allowing them access to the breast meat. Not much else is eaten and the carcass is then abandoned. One day we came across a recent kill and pictured is the gory remains of a penguin. These seals were scary and I felt intimidated by their presence; they are large, powerful, determined predators. They have attacked inflatable boats before, and they have also attacked several people before and killed at least one, a research diver; no doubt they will kill again, their search for prey elemental. They seem indifferent to what species they predate, feeding mainly on penguins, but also taking crabeater and fur seals, along with juvenile Weddell, Ross and southern elephant seals. Krill can also feature seasonally in their diet, and special serrated cheek teeth filter them out. Alongside very large canine teeth leopard seals are a very, versatile carnivore.