Despite the fog and snow we make our first landing on Penguin Island. While waiting to board the zodiac I accidentally inflate my life vest in the confusion with my backpack straps. A good start.
It´s snowing heavily by the time we land and my sunglasses fill up with snow every few minutes so I can hardly see. On the shore I notice whale bones scattered among the volcanic rocks.
It's a one-hour round walk up and around the rim of the volcano but the visibility through the snow is poor.
On the beach to the left are Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie penguins, which I now can easily recognise after seeing hundreds of them nearly every day. There are also large slug-like elephant seals. They appear to be grinning and sleeping. If anybody approached closer than they liked, an eye would open to see how close they were. They also treated us to little play? fighting which is actually a little scary.
The penguins are hilarious. They look at us inquisitively while they waddle around, jumping off rocks and sliding down snow hills, falling over comically. They don't seem to to be afraid of people and I found that if I sat down for a few minutes I'd often have one come up and peer at me or just ignore me and walk past less than a few inches from where I was sitting.
(Photo - Penguin Island)
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