Thursday, February 08, 2007

6 February (Waitangi Day) - Franklin Island - -3 degrees Celcius - 76 degrees 9 minutes South

Dad was up early again this morning. We were in the second group out to Franklin Island, a massive Adelie colony. It has a population of around 100 000, and all these penguins have been pooing there since spring, so you can imagine the smell.

Some chicks were still in the rookery, moulting their longer grey feathers. They run after adults, squawking and chasing them for food.

One penguin was still trying to construct a nest. Males build nests from pebbles and the larger nests attract females. It is pretty late in the season, so I guess this fella hadn't been having much luck...

A leopard seal was patrolling the shore and watching for groups of fledglings making for the pack ice of the beach, learning to swim. Apparently the first group in saw him catch a penguin. The seal will hold the catch in his mouth and throw it back and forth to skin it and to lose the feathers. Everyone felt sorry for the little penguin, apart from Dad who was rooting for the leopard seal.

On the way back we cruised around a couple of massive icebergs, where I got my Antartic Money Shot. In the distance we could see a massive iceberg that had broken off from the Barrier, measuring about 40 km by 20 km. You can see it from Google Earth!




















Once we got back to the boat, the call went out for the polar plunge. Dad backed out, muttering about heart somethings, disappointing a lot of people. The water was exceptionally clear and once you hit the water, all the air gets knocked out of your lungs. No matter how nonchalent you want to be in there, you can do nothing but swim for the ladder with grim determination on your face. The blood rushes from your fingers and toes, so they feel very cold, but nothing a sauna didn't fix.

That evening, we had a talk about Waitangi Day and we rocked out our haka. Dad had been practicing the words constantly (ie, when he was asleep) so I think he was quite nervous. It was kinda fun, although we received middling accounts about our fearsomeness. Someone said they thought Dad looked so cute, they wanted to go up and pinch his cheeks :-/ We gave the other guests a hongi as they came down to dinner and it is always amusing to see how some people react to having to do that.

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