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This was our last day in Antarctica. By early afternoon, we were headed back toward the Drake Passage. This morning, the Zodiac landings started very early—5 a.m. for the first group. The captain had made arrangements with another ship in the area to share the landing site with us going early and the other ship stopping there after we left. Yesterday, Iggy said that even though the ships are competitors when it comes to booking passengers, they work well together once they are in Antarctica and cooperate to share space and times for landings.
Our purple group was fourth today making our time for a Zodiac landing at 9:30, a very respectable hour. We have been lucky with most of the timings of our group's landings. We were parked in Half Moon Bay to land on a small island with several chinstrap and one Adelie rookery. This was the place where we expected to land on Sunday, but went elsewhere because of the poor conditions here. It has been a fine day today—temperature just a degree or two above freezing, light wind, no rain or snow falling, and partly cloudy skies.
The chinstraps entertained us as they went about their business. Many of them were nesting, and we saw a couple of eggs, but no chicks. Occasionally, they would stand up and call out loudly looking for their mates to return to take their turn keeping the eggs warm on the nest. A few penguins were still collecting pebbles to add to their nests, often taking them from another penguin’s nest. These chinstraps were a noisy bunch. Once, we were standing in between two colonies that were fairly close to one another when they started what seemed to be a shouting match. They can be loud hooting back and forth. Brent Houston, the Penguin Guy, says that the younger ones are the more vocal, and as they age, they call less to their mates. Penguins are monogamous for their lifetimes. If one of the mate’s doesn’t return to the nest at the start of the mating season (they are seal and whale food, after all), they will find a new mate among the younger penguins who hover at the edge of the colony waiting and looking for love. I guess they don’t stay together during the winter when they are mostly at sea while the nesting areas are covered with snow.
We saw a number of flying birds during the landing, too. A Weddell seal and some leopard seals were spotted by the expedition crew during this landing. After leaving Half Moon Bay, the ship started out at a fairly good speed. They slowed down though when the bridge team spotted a number of animals close to the ship. There were lots of fin whales and humpback whales cavorting near the ship. Sean, the Whale guy, thought that some of them were communicating with each other by the way they breached and tail-waggled. We saw one calf who was playing and seemed to be trying to breach, but got the movements all wrong. He was practicing.
At the recap and briefing, Iggy talked more about the cooperation between cruise ships in Antarctica. He showed a slide with the positions of all the expedition cruise ships in the Antarctic Peninsula. There are twelve ships here now and later in the season there will be more. The slide makes it look very busy.
Our purple group was fourth today making our time for a Zodiac landing at 9:30, a very respectable hour. We have been lucky with most of the timings of our group's landings. We were parked in Half Moon Bay to land on a small island with several chinstrap and one Adelie rookery. This was the place where we expected to land on Sunday, but went elsewhere because of the poor conditions here. It has been a fine day today—temperature just a degree or two above freezing, light wind, no rain or snow falling, and partly cloudy skies.
The chinstraps entertained us as they went about their business. Many of them were nesting, and we saw a couple of eggs, but no chicks. Occasionally, they would stand up and call out loudly looking for their mates to return to take their turn keeping the eggs warm on the nest. A few penguins were still collecting pebbles to add to their nests, often taking them from another penguin’s nest. These chinstraps were a noisy bunch. Once, we were standing in between two colonies that were fairly close to one another when they started what seemed to be a shouting match. They can be loud hooting back and forth. Brent Houston, the Penguin Guy, says that the younger ones are the more vocal, and as they age, they call less to their mates. Penguins are monogamous for their lifetimes. If one of the mate’s doesn’t return to the nest at the start of the mating season (they are seal and whale food, after all), they will find a new mate among the younger penguins who hover at the edge of the colony waiting and looking for love. I guess they don’t stay together during the winter when they are mostly at sea while the nesting areas are covered with snow.
We saw a number of flying birds during the landing, too. A Weddell seal and some leopard seals were spotted by the expedition crew during this landing. After leaving Half Moon Bay, the ship started out at a fairly good speed. They slowed down though when the bridge team spotted a number of animals close to the ship. There were lots of fin whales and humpback whales cavorting near the ship. Sean, the Whale guy, thought that some of them were communicating with each other by the way they breached and tail-waggled. We saw one calf who was playing and seemed to be trying to breach, but got the movements all wrong. He was practicing.
At the recap and briefing, Iggy talked more about the cooperation between cruise ships in Antarctica. He showed a slide with the positions of all the expedition cruise ships in the Antarctic Peninsula. There are twelve ships here now and later in the season there will be more. The slide makes it look very busy.
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