It is Wednesday, and today was our last day of excursions. We spent a full day moored at Danco Island in the Errera Channel. The island is 1 mile long and 0.3 miles wide, and it has the largest penguin colony that we’ve seen on this voyage. There are hundreds of penguins here!
Our zodiac excursion took us to a rocky beach, and there were penguins there to greet us. In fact, one started to waddle towards me, and I had to back up to maintain my distance as it came within five feet of me.
From there we zigzagged up the mountain. At the top of our path, there was a large area with penguins roosting. There were a couple of penguins highways that went from that roost area to others higher up the mountain. It was so cute to see the birds waddling through the snow to go from one place to another.
As we walked back down the mountain, we saw penguins taking highways from the roost area down to the shore to go feed in the water.
We did see a couple of empty egg shells where predator birds had eaten the babies. We also saw a few penguin skeletons where seals had been feeding. Circle of life.
As we rode the zodiac back to the ship, we encountered huge groups of penguins feeding on krill in the bay. I also got a great video of several penguins flying through the air in from of our zodiac. They are like porpoises that fly up out of the water and then dive back in.
The ship started out of the bay at 5 pm and is heading to the Drake Passage. We will pass the 60 degree latitude and officially leave Antarctic waters at 9 pm. It’s a bittersweet moment. It’s been such an amazing week down here, and I’ve seen and experienced things I never expected when we booked this trip.
As we enter the Drake Passage later this evening, it seems that we will get the Drake Lake again. We have been fortunate with great weather on this trip, and it appears that the Gods of Calm Water will be with us again.
We’ll spend the next day and a half traveling 544 nautical miles on the open ocean and will arrive in Ushuaia on Friday.
And just as I was about to publish this post, three whales swam by to bid us farewell:
