Hannah Point, Livingston Island
This morning the National Geographic Explorer made her way across the last section of the Drake Passage. The ship then approached the South Shetland Islands, a group of volcanic islands that lie off shore of the Antarctic Peninsula. One of the largest of these islands is Livingston Island, which has a large ice cap and glaciers on it. Once everyone had been through decontamination, which amounts to making sure no seeds are being introduced from other continents, we were ready to go ashore after lunch. John Durban and Bob Pitman of Scripts Institute gave a talk on killer whales as well.
Our first landing in Antarctica was at Hannah point, home to gentoo and chinstrap penguins. While the chinstraps were still in semi-organized groups the gentoos were everywhere, adults and chicks. There were also a good number of elephant seals in large muddy, stinky, brown wallows as they are molting their skin at this time of year. A special treat was the presence of a few macaroni penguins, which tend to nest farther north. In addition to the elephant seals many of us in the Zodiacs saw the other pinniped species on various beachs; weddel, Antarctic fur seals, crabeaters, and one leopard seal were enjoyed.
Our next adventure will be into the Weddel Sea on the other side of the Antarctic Peninsula.
