Brown Bluff (-63.5333330, -56.9000000)

Our final day in Antarctica was to involve a landing in Brown Bluff. This area is known for a couple of things, firstly Penguins by the truckload and secondly it's close to the year-round Argentinian base, Esperanza. This base's claim to fame is having had the first human birth in Antarctica - on purpose in January 1978. The theory of this planned birth was that if territorial claims ever came to a head, having an 'Antarctic citizen' so to speak would not hurt.

Brown Bluff is a flat top extinct volcanic that formed under a glacier. We were told to expect lots of Adélie penguins on the 1.5 km long beach, Lava bomb rocks which are man sized rocks thrown off by the volcano. The cliffs are tuff and granite and if we see black icebergs, well they are actually lava. With all this knowledge to hand, due to first world problems, Antarctic style, we didn't manage to land on the continent to see the penguins. Why? Because there were too many penguins. There was, in fairness, also too much swell and the landing was iced up, but the main problem was the excess of penguins. We did however get to go ice cruising along the Brown Bluff beach area instead and finally got to see our fill of Adelie penguins - thousands of them, everywhere and even some chicks. It was Penguinville on steroids. When we were watching a whole passel of penguins diving into the water we also spotted a seal, cruising for a mid-morning snack. The penguins all suddenly got water-shy - not surprisingly - and were standing about on the bergs saying 'Me? No thanks, no plans for fishing today… You? No as well'. Just. Too. Cute. So how many penguins is too many? Well given they are really hard to count, estimates are rough, but 30,000 Adelies and between 5,000 and 10,000 Gentoo were the numbers being bandied about by the onboard scientists. Yep. Lots of penguins.

We returned to the ship and on the trip back we saw loads of penguins out fishing, jumping and flying through the water. Lunch was bittersweet as it was announced that we were beginning the homeward voyage later that afternoon. A sad farewell to our new favourite continent. Drake Passage - be kind!