Orne Harbour: 64.4° S, 62.3° W; 0° C (32° F)   Sunrise:  03:21   Sunset:  23:11

Thank you all for your kind wishes!  I have bounced back, up to almost anything Lindblad Expeditions throws at me.  One thing I was not up to, and neither was Shirley, was a very steep hike via a series of switchbacks on slippery, possibly slushy ice to an elevation of 1000 meters.  If you look closely at this photo, you will see little orange hikers on the mountain.  There was light snow this morning so visibility was not great.

Shirley and I opted for a zodiac cruise of Orne Harbour to visit a Chinstrap colony – one can never get enough of Chinstraps – and many birds.  In spite of the snow it was not cold, though when the zodiac was at full speed I was happy to have my parka hood up.  The parka is really extraordinarily effective – it is light, the lining is warm, and the parka is impervious to wind.

These penguins are amazing.  I understand they have the intelligence of a chicken which for me explains a lot of their behavior.  They nest on the rocks that are clear of snow earliest in the summer season.  Makes sense: their main predators are whales and leopard seals that cannot reach the higher rock.  But often those rocks are waaay up there so the penguins have to trudge up and down the mountain to get food.  They follow a penguin highway as I mentioned in a previous post.  You can se the highway in this photo.  It’s somewhat red because their diet of krill produces a reddish guano.

Many kelp gulls and Antarctic terns soared overhead.  The snowy sheathbill was a little harder to spot as they stayed closer to the mountainside.  I have not been counting the different birds we have encountered but the number is mounting.  As our seabird expert told us a few days ago, the oceans to the north and the south are the most productive for seabirds because they contain the most krill – food for the birds.

We left Orne Harbour at noon and sailed south to navigate the Lemaire Channel.  The captain advised us that this would be a delicate but beautiful passage as the channel is quite narrow.  Most of the guests on the ship gathered on the bow to watch our progress.

On the way through Lemaire Channel we encountered more crabeater and leopard seals, and a skua.  This crabeater seal looks like he had an encounter with a predator who left a gash on his side. These innocent-looking skuas can be naughty little birds, stealing penguin eggs if the mom or dad drops their guard.

We ended the day with a video taken by Lisa, our undersea expert, who donned a drysuit and went in search of leopard seals.  Her underwater camera has a large dome around it that reflects the seals’ images, so several times a seal came right up to the camera, open his mouth to bite it with VERY LARGE SHARP teeth, then swim away. I asked Lisa if she was not worried about that behavior.  She told me that there are tells that the seals are getting frustrated and as soon as they do, she gets right out of the water.  Good move!

So happy to have my sister Shirley travelling with me!  This is a wonderful adventure for us both.