Although the strong light of a yellow sun tried its best to dominate our day, on this summer solstice the most important colours were black and white. Monochromatic wildlife were a constant treat. This morning the National Geographic Orion penetrated into the Weddell Sea via Fridtjof Strait, and here we came across a group of killer whales swimming along the edge of the pack ice. Our dive team was quickly deployed in a Zodiac to see what they could record of these fast moving predators, and shortly thereafter we all took to the boats to explore the ice from sea level. The ice floes were loosely packed and sprinkled among them were larger icebergs, making for a shiny white seascape. Some of the ice floes played host to loitering Adelie penguins, perhaps resting before returning to busy-ness of one of the many breeding colonies found nearby.
In the late afternoon we saw for ourselves how busy these colonies can be. After a difficult passage through the drifting pack ice, our trusty rubber boats delivered us to the shores of Devil Island, so named because the island sports two distinctive peaks that look like horns. The northern shore of this volcanic island is crowded with the nests of over 10,000 pairs of Adelie penguins. Most of the nests contained two small chicks which, because the weather was relatively mild, were not hidden away under the belly of their parents. We were able to watch them being fed, cheeping loudly while waving their open mouths back and forth until their parent took the hint and deposited some krill into their mouths. After a spot of penguin watching the more energetic among us stretched our legs with a hike to the top of one of the island’s horny peaks. The view from the top was magnificent—a blue ocean littered with ice, the mainland of the Antarctic Peninsula framing the horizon.
And as if those experiences were not enough for one day, we also squeezed in a kayak excursion near Devil Island. Most of us took the opportunity to explore the area from the serenity of our quiet, inflatable kayaks.
