We dedicated today to Adélie penguins.
The morning brought Antarctic conditions, as we like to call them, which means cold and windy and beautiful. We arrived on shore at Brown Bluff right after breakfast and enjoyed the morning along the beach watching the Adélies and their chicks. The chicks are getting big enough to be left alone for a while. Both parents will go off to feed at this stage, so the pear-shaped puffs of grey down huddle together in the driving snow to wait for their next meal. Gentoos also nest here, and we listened to them calling back and forth and learned the call of the hungry chicks.
The morning also gave us a chance to hear from the two killer whale researchers on board, Holly Fearnbach and John Durban. They showed off their super cool hexacopter—a drone they will use to record pods of whales from the sky.
We chose Paulet Island for our afternoon landing. It also hosts a colony of Adélie penguins, and this one is truly huge. The long hikers walked the beach, around a headland, over to the far side of the island and up a hill, but we never left the penguins. Their nests cover the island, and where we didn’t find penguins we found shags, gulls, and an army of skuas. Doug Gualtieri educated us all of the finer points of the skua lifestyle. They are stunning predators that feed primarily on penguin eggs and chicks at this time of year. Though their methods may be brutal, they are wonderful to watch. And they also have chicks to raise.
We whiled away the evening in iceberg alley. We left the Weddell Sea behind and are headed for the west side of the peninsula. Beautiful light and calmer seas treated us to spectacular ice show. We all have rosy cheeks and new memories from our first full day of landings.
