Penguins, Kayaking, and lichen covered weathered wood
Our tenth night, hunkered down in the cozy warmth of Quixote Expedition’s “Ocean Tramp” sail boat, anchored and still in the wet breeze, pending our final day’s passage tomorrow.
I still feel the expansive glow from our recent kayak and zodiac trip from Port Lockroy to Dorian Cove in blue-sky-still-water-sunshine. The perfect reflections of the surrounding snowy peaks. The luscious granite under the boot. Historic Damoy hut with its light, open feeling and wooden tool holders carved to accommodate the curve of each historical hand tool. At Jougla Point, Gentoo penguin antics and the bleached whale skeleton stretched along the tidal rocks.
It’s totally absorbing to quietly watch the penguins’ social world, especially between chicks and parents — feeding, warming, bickering, calling. Some plump balls-of-fuzz chicks like soft hedge hogs from a distance. Some newborns with teeny flippers snuggling beneath the white, warm feather breasts. The careful choice, and transport, and placement of small rocks for the nest. The rock-hopping up and up and up to favored, high nesting rocks. The noisy song of the group. The smell of the colony. The coming and going within the surf — creatures transforming from the walking waddle to the streamlined, graceful, porpoise-ing water-world creatures that they are.
The visit to Deception Island’s Whalers Bay, the remains of the whaling station / UK base, includes lovely silvery weathered woods, giant rusting tanks a-kilter, lichen-painted whaling water-boats, seals lounging against the boards. We hiked up to the rim of the caldera for views into the depths and out to the sea-sanctuary where we have anchored. The earth a dark volcano sand with large, spewn erratics of colored, seared conglomerates and pumice yellow. A sleeping Weddell Seal glowing white on the dark beach.
How grateful I feel to Captain Fede and First Mate Laura for giving us coziness and delicious meals and hearty company while taking us on this far flung adventure. They have shared lovely coves and sea passages rich with Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins, Humpback and Minke whales, Weddell and Crabeater and Leopard seals, and birds — Skua, Albatross, Petrel, Cormorant. I am grateful for my time at the bow feeling the passage of the other-worldly icebergs, cracked in depths of blue
