And lo did the weather gods smile upon us, for today's second excursion to the actual continent of Antarctica exceeded my dreams.

When the ship pulled into the harbor, you immediately knew something special was going to happen because the water was so calm. It was like a massive mirror reflecting everything you see...

It kind of messes with your head because you're seeing double across the entire horizon...

Click to embiggen the photo in a new window.

As we headed out in a Zodiac to our landing site, the ice in the water started out pretty small...

But kept getting bigger and thicker the closer we got...

By the time we made it to shore, it was all ice...

Everywhere you looked, there was gorgeous scenery begging to be photographed. And if this were the only day I had in Antarctica, I would have been perfectly fine with that...

Yes, those are penguins laying there if you zoom in...

There's a couple rookeries nearby where penguins hangs out...

They're building nests by hauling pebbles around...

Except pebbles are lacking, so they're pretty much just stealing them from each other's nests. Which results in arguments, as you'd imagine...

And so... yeah... Neko Harbor. A pretty great end to a pretty great day...

Everything I see after this is gravy.

Neko Harbor is a backtrack through Andvord Bay from yesterday, so our progress is a little backwards...

©2017 Google Maps

The weather seems to be clouding up again, so I'm guessing tomorrow won't be as nice as today. Which is totally okay... if every day were this perfect, my head might explode.