We made our first landing today on Half Moon Island and it was more than we ever imagined.

We climbed up the ice and snow covered mountains and everywhere we looked – PENGUINS! My video skills are still pretty bad but I caught a lot of action, they were very good subjects. One of fellow travelers managed to get video of the elusive projectile penguin pooping but they were not willing to share so it won’t be on the blog yet. But we can verify from Catherine’s eyewitness account that it is in fact pink, projectile, penguin pooh. And it makes a squirting sound.



We geared up for the harsh weather and the high-speed ride to the landing site in a tiny raft. Catherine is in full Antarctic landing gear and a picture of the tiny boat that takes us there. It holds eight passengers and if you look at the tiny speck next to the not so very big Fram (remember it is about 1/5th the size of a normal cruise ship) you will see what I am talking about.




The penguin rookeries were amazing and Catherine watched the penguins turn the eggs. It was an incredible sight. That being said, there were individual or small groups of penguins scattered all over the island. The rookery is all chinstrap penguins, but we had a few visitors on the beach that were gentoo penguins. They stayed on the beach and we got to see some more shoot up out of the water. They were a joy to watch and we took a lot of pictures and video. I we can figure out how to post video we will. ‘






We have been advised that our adopted group has come up with a new game for the bar festivities tonight and attendance is mandatory. We should get to the Antarctic Sound around midnight and knowing this group we will be watching it from the observation lounge before we turn in. We may have two landings tomorrow if the weather permits including a stop at a large Argentine research base.