What I Missed

I told you a lot of geography and natural formations. What I left out (on purpose because it deserves special treatment) is the wild life!

We expected penguins, had hints about whales, discussed birds and believed we would see seals of one sort or another. What we experienced was something different and unexpected.

First, Penguins.

There are a lot of them, all different sorts, Kings, Magellanic, Emperors, Rock Hoppers and Geentoos. They live in colonies or ‘rookeries’ near or where they breed. They do this in the 10s of thousands. We got close to them the Falklands but not so much here as we cannot land. They are beautiful and amazing but awful smelly. As the captain pointed out “you will smell them before you see them”.

Unfortunately I cannot seem to upload videos. We have some showing the little darlings swimming and ‘flying’ in the waves. It’s really cool and cute.

As far as seals we saw few, usually loners on the ice.

Whales we saw a lot of! Humpbacks, Minkes, Rights and Blue Whales. Again I have videos, some amazingly close to the ship. They are always amazing to me!

The birds were everywhere and difficult to get on camera. They just don’t translate very well. There were lots of Albatross. They soar so low and never seem to flap their wings. We were told in one lecture that they can actually lock their wings and fly while sleeping. They can also stay aloft away from land for years.