Another 5am start today, landing at St Andrews Bay in the half light for sunrise at 6.36am. St Andrews Bay is home to more than 150,000 pairs of king penguins, and around 8000 elephant seals. A clear sky dawns over the beach, and inland the juvenile king penguins travel up to 2 km to line the banks of the glacial streams, preening and shedding their down in order to become waterproof enough to swim.
A herd of reindeer, descendents of those introduced more than 60 years ago is grazing in front of the Heaney Glacier.
Down by the shore, a bull elephant seal has lost a battle with the dominant male on the shore.
This afternoon, the plan is to try to kayak in Hercules Bay, approximately 2 hours sail from St Andrews Bay. Conditions in Hercules Bay turn out to be close to perfect, so a peaceful afternoon is spent paddling in inflatable sea kayaks around this picturesque little bay, with elephant seals, fur seals, macaroni penguins and soaring light-mantled sooty albatrosses for company. And yes, they are my clodhoppers in the frame below in my trusty, well-travelled Arctic Sport Boots!
In the late afternoon we set sail for Fortuna Bay, and are immediately surrounded by fog – it looks like our run of unbelievably good weather is about to change.
One Trackback
[…] king penguin here located near one of the fingers of the Konig Glacier. My last visits here were in 2010 and 2012, when reindeer were still present. The cull of reindeer began in 2013, and the only sign […]