Chin Strap Penguins and Elephant Seals! Our last excursion is wet and cold and icky soupy marshy, but it’s full of incredible, different wild life. We land on the beach with the Chin Straps – they are so cute – and different looking from the Gentoos and Adelies. There are tons and tons of them, but the light is so poor and the rain so steady, there is no way we can capture them adequately on film. We are relying on Nathalie to capture all the great shots we know we can not (we have total faith in her – she posts her pictures on the photo computers after every excursion and they are fabulous! We made the decision to buy the photo disk early on after seeing her work).
We wander up the coast, following the flags to the other side of the island (a 20 minute slog) where there are tons of Elephant seals. Oh my! The noises they make! You can hear them from really far away! They are almost as funny as the penguins – albeit a lot more scary. These guys are truly HUGE. Laying on the beach all over each other. Fighting or playing – who knows? – they’re opening their massive jaws in huge yawn like poses. The seals in the ocean are rubbing their heads against each other, “yawning” and falling into each other in the water. We can get really close to them – but not too close! J.J. is there, as he says “keeping the seals at bay” for us.
Unfortunately, the weather is miserable. It’s raining, blowing, cold. We can’t really take pictures because there’s too much water on the lens. We hang out for a while, just watching the beasts, then turn to head back up the hill and back to the zodiac. It’s actually a good day to be done with the excursions- we can throw our boots away and not worry about them, dry out our soaked gloves, socks and balaclava, fold up the snow pants and get ready for the Drake! Hmmm….on second thought, maybe I’ll stay……
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