Day 8 &mdash 2003/02/01
First Landing: Half Moon Island
Chinstrap penguins here instead of gentoos. Still a huge colony, and all that goes with it. There was also a bunch of fur seals too around the island as well.
Kinda funny, someone had a small tripod, and was filming a fur seal. And the seal charged, so he jumped away, leaving his camera. The following twenty minutes were spent is a bit of an edging dance trying to get close enough to his camera to get it back, and not close enough to the seal for it to charge again. (Sometimes the other passengers are as entertaining as the wildlife.)
On a short cruise after leaving the island, went out to an ice berg and watched some chinstraps on it. Got a neat picture of a chinstrap jumping onto the ice berg too.
Second Landing:
Was sleeping when the called out for the last couple of zodiacs leaving. So I had to rush to get my gear on. This lead to me being in the last zodiac. And since the IAATO states to only allow 100 visitors at a time to an area, we went out on a cruise for a while. Saw some neat stuff, but the best part was the Macaroni that we came across.
We were on this cruise a bit longer than we should have been, since the driver's radio battery died. And the rest thought we were lost until he changed batteries and could contact them back.
Also while we were heading back, we hit a wave, and since I was in the front I got nailed with a splashed wave of sea water. That was cold.
The guides have stated many times how unusually wonderful the weather we have had was. We made all of the landings, plus and extra one. This is nearly unheard of.
Most of us are hoping that we will not get paid back when we cross the Drake Passage again.