Location – Neko Harbor

For the afternoon we visited Neko Harbor, which has a large rookery of Gentoo penguins. Ok, I’ll admit it. I just like watching penguins walk.

Since we were visitors at their home, we needed to scoot out of the way whenever a penguin waddled up or down the hill. Some penguins seemed to enjoy watching us scramble.

Here are two penguins in different phases of molting. The adult on the right is mid-way to getting their new coat. The (large) hatchling on the left still has a lot of their chick fur.

And I’m posting this photo just because I like the glacier backdrop.

Speaking of glaciers, this one was quite talkative. Every 15 minutes or so there would be a great *BANG* and everyone would spin and look. At one time we caught the upper glacier spilling over.

Now for what I can only call the “Great Leopard Seal Zodiac Blocking Operation”. You often find leopard seals near rookeries – penguins are part of their diet. This one was quite large, over 2 meters. And was fascinated by the zodiac’s propellers. Every time it got too close, the guide had to shut down the motor to avoid harming it. After 20 minutes the seal had six zodiacs floating nearby, unable to move towards the ship or beach.

The guides had never seen such a curious leopard seal before. It was dashing around and under the zodiacs.

I was not having much joy with the camera, but he swam below me at the right time. The water was so clear I could make a GIF out of it. It frustrating because GIFs have a max width of 640px and my photos are 6000px. I’ll try to make a proper video later.

We finished the day with a (much delayed due to seal) tour of the local ice. I just don’t have the skills to show the grandeur properly.

There are some storms to the north, so we are going against the plan and heading further south. It should still be a bit windy, but who knows. We didn’t get any of the forecast snow today.