Port Lockroy, Jougla Point, Antarctica
This morning we made our last visit ashore in Antarctica at Port Lockroy, a sheltered bay on Wiencke Island in the Palmer Archipelago. Perched on rocky Goudier Island in the middle of the glacier-crowded port is a British Antarctic Survey hut established in 1943 as a part of Operation Tabarin. Now it serves as a museum and post office for Antarctic visitors such as ourselves.
Opposite Goudier Island is Jougla Point, home to nesting gentoo penguins and blue-eyed shags. The peculiar topography of the rookery here gathers the season-long production of guano, and with gravity’s aid, delivers it to the low-lying flats between the boulders. Yesterday a snowfall softened everything up prior to our visit and created a sea of pinkish-brown slop (mud doesn’t quite do the substance justice) that both the penguins and we had the “pleasure” of dealing with. In our Muck Boots and Wellies, we gingerly picked our way through the goo to viewpoints, but what of the penguins?
I watched numerous adults as they navigated the boggy bottoms to and from their nests and noticed that they showed a marked preference for any rocks, be they large (as in the above photo) or small, that poked above the slimy sea. With an expression of naive confidence that seems a penguin inheritance (they thrive in Antarctica, after-all), they would launch themselves up, down, or straight across to the next rock, rather than wade knee-deep through the miry muck. It may be as close to flying as a penguin will ever come, but don’t tell that to the youngster slumbering spread eagle on the rock -- he seems to be having flying dreams of his own and we should let him, for the time being at least.
In further Antarctic news, late in the afternoon, we were treated to an amazing display of humpback whales attempting to fly! A cow-calf pair breached a total of at least twenty-five times as we watched and cheered from the Endeavour in the windswept Gerlache Strait.
This morning we made our last visit ashore in Antarctica at Port Lockroy, a sheltered bay on Wiencke Island in the Palmer Archipelago. Perched on rocky Goudier Island in the middle of the glacier-crowded port is a British Antarctic Survey hut established in 1943 as a part of Operation Tabarin. Now it serves as a museum and post office for Antarctic visitors such as ourselves.
Opposite Goudier Island is Jougla Point, home to nesting gentoo penguins and blue-eyed shags. The peculiar topography of the rookery here gathers the season-long production of guano, and with gravity’s aid, delivers it to the low-lying flats between the boulders. Yesterday a snowfall softened everything up prior to our visit and created a sea of pinkish-brown slop (mud doesn’t quite do the substance justice) that both the penguins and we had the “pleasure” of dealing with. In our Muck Boots and Wellies, we gingerly picked our way through the goo to viewpoints, but what of the penguins?
I watched numerous adults as they navigated the boggy bottoms to and from their nests and noticed that they showed a marked preference for any rocks, be they large (as in the above photo) or small, that poked above the slimy sea. With an expression of naive confidence that seems a penguin inheritance (they thrive in Antarctica, after-all), they would launch themselves up, down, or straight across to the next rock, rather than wade knee-deep through the miry muck. It may be as close to flying as a penguin will ever come, but don’t tell that to the youngster slumbering spread eagle on the rock -- he seems to be having flying dreams of his own and we should let him, for the time being at least.
In further Antarctic news, late in the afternoon, we were treated to an amazing display of humpback whales attempting to fly! A cow-calf pair breached a total of at least twenty-five times as we watched and cheered from the Endeavour in the windswept Gerlache Strait.
