Antarctica - Danco Island

This morning was an early Zodiac landing on Danco Island.
We landed and there were hundreds of penguins. And they are smelly. The area is all marked off before guests land so that we stay away from their nesting grounds and keep to a pre-defined path so that we don't disturb the ecosystem. After greeting many of the very smelly penguins, we hiked up the snow covered hill to a midway view point to take some pictures and take in the views. On our way up we noticed large bird wings flapping over a low spot in the snow. We found out later from a guide that there were 2 birds that attacked a penguin in its nest for food. There was another path marked off that took us even higher into the hillside where there was another penguin nesting area and they smelled like fish also.
As we trekked back down with our poles, sometimes a stray penguin would cross our path and everyone had to stop to give them at least a 15 foot space. Then as were were just about to the bottom of the hike back down to the Zodiac back to the ship, a penguin decided to stop in the middle of our path to have a drink of water, look around and cause a complete stop to any going up or down the hill.
Finally back on the Zodiac to the ship we sat in the front 2 seats and the bay was sort of rough, so our clothes were soaked with sea water.Читать далее