Stanley - Bluff Cove: PENGUINS!

OMG PENGUINS! I finally got to see some up close. This was a ship offered shore excursion and I picked it because as I said before, we might not have been able to make port, so I wanted a guarantee of my money back if we couldn't. It turned out to be a GREAT tour with lots of time with the penguins and a lovely homemade snack to boot.

Bluff Cove is actually a privately owned farm. They have sheep and cows, but they are also right on the water and have a small colony of king penguins and several larger colonies of gentoo penguins. The kings were just kinda sitting around (as I imagine kings often do), but if you look carefully you could see that many of them were holding their eggs on their feet. The penguins were well protected by rangers who made sure all us tourists stayed inside the lines, but the penguins were not fussed by us at all and walked among us with no fear. This footprint is for the kings, I'll put up another with the gentoos, who were much more active and had chicks of all shapes and sizes.Read more