Yankee Harbour - Visiting the Penguins!

The strong winds, coupled with a choppy ride and snow made for an interesting ride from the ship to shore. We got thoroughly soaked as the zodiac hit the waves - a baptism from the sea! Sometimes the water droplets froze immediately and came down on us like small stones, and then melted quickly.

We couldn't go all the way inside the natural harbour because of sea ice but the expedition guides had found a place at the entrance of the harbour, right at the end of the spit.

If we wanted to see penguins, we had to walk along the spit, through snow, following coloured poles, to the mainland island and saw a colony of penguins. Despite the driving wind, frozen faces and lips, we got to see the Gentoo penguins. They were delightful to look at. Some were sleeping, a few standing, others walking. At one point 2 penguins came towards us where our group was standing (a rope demarcated a safe distance barrier, not to be crossed in order to observe the penguins from a respectful distance). We had to walk back, away from the penguins in order to maintain a good no-contact distance. They were really sweet.

After a while, rather frozen, we headed back to the zodiac for a ride back to the ship. Hot chocolate afterwards came in handy!

Paul is heading back to bed now for the rest of the day, and I'm going to relax and wait until this afternoon's zodiac ride to Edinburgh Hill (an ancient basalt volcanic plug) that is on Varna Peninsula, Livingston Island, south Shetland Islands.Read more