Pingüinos!

Our little ship plied the glacier-ground fjords of the Magellan Strait overnight and presented us with our first morning excursion on zodiacs: Ainsworth Bay. Like tenderfoot commandos (in fluorescent orange life jackets), we tentatively stormed the beach in broad daylight to investigate the flora and discuss the climate, all under the watchful eye of Ainsworth Glacier.

The highlight, though, was seeing the penguins...at Ieast for me. These are photos and a video of some of the 4000 Magellanic (pronounced mah-heh-yahn'-ik in Spanish) penguins living on one of Tucker's Islets in the Magellan Strait. We remained on the zodiac so we wouldn't disturb them, and that accounts for some of the video's bumpiness. They all seemed to be hanging out waiting for the bus!

So formal in their tuxes and, yes, neighborly, the penguins share their island with a colony of cormorants.Read more