Don't Let It End (New Island) - 11 February 2009

Our last two landings are today, both on New Island. In the morning we walked up to an area teaming with birds. Blue-eyed shags, rockhopper penguins, and albatrosses all crowded together building their nests and caring for their young.

Here's a pretty good explanation for why they're called rockhopper penguins:


Jen and I both spent the morning sitting near a mixed colony of shags and rockhoppers. At first the juvenile shags were curious about us, nipping at our boots and pants. After awhile they decided to ignore us and just go about their business, even cutting between us occasionally.

Because of their disinterest I finally managed to get a picture I've been trying to get for weeks. They aren't named blue-eyed shags for no reason, but with my camera (an Olympus 820) I haven't been able to zoom in enough to show the blue eyes. Today though:

For the afternoon landing we had a dolphin escort:



We were all so transfixed by the experience that we had to be encouraged to move on from the beach. It was tempting to sit there and watch the dolphins follow the zodiacs back and forth from the ship. After a little convincing, though, we took a nice walking tour.

We came across a large colony of gentoo penguins, some of them trying to get into the water while avoiding a seal:

This guy did eventually get a penguin, but I didn't manage to get any pictures of that.

After the gentoo colony we ended up overlooking an albatross colony where we sat for awhile reflecting on the trip and the grace of these birds.

On the walk back to the zodiacs we stopped to look over a large canyon, and then it was back to the ship to head to South America.