Humpback Whale Lobtailing

What a treat! In the morning crossed the Antarctic circle and roughly 12 hours later I got to witness humpback whales lunging and fluking around our ship. Running around like a kid in a candy shop, everyone seemed to frantically and excitedly check out the whales and take photos best they could.

After going on safari in Namibia and realizing you can never really have enough zoom with wildlife, I showed up in Antarctica with a ginormous Tamron 150-600mm zoom. This is a lens to rival my forearm in size, so it's nothing to sneeze at. It's also kinda heavy, so holding it up shooting for more than a minute or so at a time could be kind of exhausting, but boy did it ever come in handy here!

Filled with a sense of wonder and amazement, I was totally blown away every time I heard the puff of air and water shoot out from the blowhole as the whale lunged out of the water, lifting its flukes before smacking them down on the water. Tremendous sight to see in person!

The flukes of a humpback whale.