Saturday 19 February 2011

Penguin Cacophony

The morning was filled with yet another set of interesting lectures. Then, after lunch, we reached the afternoon destination: the Fish Islands. They are a small archipelago of rocky little islands whose more appropriate name should actually be the “Penguin Islands” as they are covered with breeding Adelies. Now, the chicks are almost grown-up, but still – they keep begging for food whenever they can. So when we reached the shoreline, we were not only welcomed by the already familiar penguin perfume, but also by a quite intensive penguin noise. Returning adults calling for their offspring and offspring responding enthusiastically (sometimes even to the wrong parents – but these are normally not very amused about it!).



On the island opposite to our landing spot was another colony of black and white birds. But funny enough – some of these penguins spread out their wings and lifted themselves into the air! It was indeed a rookery of cormorants. Before returning to the ship we had the opportunity to approach these fascinating birds with our polar circle boats. And once more we also got a little iceberg tour which filled our camera chips with another hundreds of photos of bizarre forms, shapes and intensive blue colors.

The day concluded in the Observation Lounge with FRAM’s famous Fashion Show. Officers, Expedition Staff and also some passengers came on the catwalk to present our shop’s collection of jackets, T-shirts, sweaters and even swimming suits (for the next polar plunge maybe?).