Greetings from Antarctica, well an island just off the continent anyway. I woke up this morning to thick fog so I wasn't able to see land from the get go. However, as we got closer to the South Shetland Islands I was able to see a lot more. Suprisingly, a lot of what I saw was not tundra, but lush. I guess that's the 5% or so of the continent that isn't frozen.
I spent the morning decontaminating my outer clothing to make sure I don't carry anything from other environments into Antarctica's fragile ecosystem. I also attended a talk about conservation and science efforts on some of these islands, how they have been tracking various penguin colonies, and the effects of climate change on their breeding patterns.
Yesterday the head of the tour mentioned that we would be landing this afternoon, but that our location wouldn't be known until closer to the actual landing time. Ideally, they wanted us to land at Bailey's Head, home to 100,000 PAIR of Chinstrap Penguins (named for the black stripe that goes from their ears around their chins), but it required very calm waters since it would be a difficult landing (they have only landed there once this whole season). We lucked out and after lunch I boarded a zodiac with my nephew for Bailey's Head, Deception Island. Hurray for calm seas!
Deception Island is an active volcano, and the sand was ashen and grey. Immediately to my left and right after landing were seals - Fur Seals and 1 Elephant Seal. Apparently the fur seals are not only enormous, but can also run 35mph. Also, they are not nice. Scary seals. 200,000 penguins is a lot of penguino. And Guano. AKA Penguin Poop. The island smells, is pretty noisy since there are a lot of shouting penguins, but that all faded into the background as I took in the sight of all these penguins.
We walked through a valley filled with penguins going to and from the ocean. It's feeding time. The chinstrap babies were already able to walk around, but the parents are really hungry and as the children grow they need more food. It's quite a commotion to see the penguins waddling to and from the water to get mouthfuls of krill. I was fortunate enough to see a few instances of actual feeding...saliva and all. I'll put up a picture or two of that.
All along the valley and up into the mountains on three sides are tons of penguins. An occasional Skua (bird, predator, likes baby penguins) would come swooping down and all the penguins would shriek and fight back. Occassionally while walkinig I spotted a penguin carcass. I walked up to the ridge where I could see the entire valley, speckled in black and white with the ocean behind it all. Of course if I turned around, I was at the edge of a cliff, with the ocean below me there as well.
This is a picture of seals hanging out peacefully with penguins.
This picture should give you an idea of how many penguins there are here. This is nothing compared to what I saw today. Just a tiny swath of a huge island.
This is a picture of a parent feeding a child. I feel really lucky to have snapped this one.
Finally, this is a penguin stretch.
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