Macquarie Island

 Wednesday, January 13

In the early morning hours, the rolling stops and all is quiet. We're not moving anymore, the ship is anchored in Buckle Creek. By 04.30h, it is daylight and the weather absolutely glorious. We can see the research station.

After an early breakfast, Rodney and some staff go over to pick up a couple of rangers and bring them on board. We have a briefing on the conditions and in the end it is decided that the ship move on to Sandy Bay, to get away from the prevailing wind.

At last we can board the Zodiacs to be ferried over to the beach. Getting off the moving gangway and platform into the Zodiac is a small challenge. There are no seats, one simply sits on the sides.

The landing on the beach is a wet landing, meaning we step into the water and wade onto the beach.....a beach of black sand! I've never seen anything like it.

We are able to leave the swim vests and our back packs behind and are free to traipse off.

It is like paradise! There are penguins everywhere.

I spot some neat round boulders and am just thinking how handy one of these will be for me to sit on and observe, when one of them moves and snorts! They are, of course, elephant seals of which there are heaps more around.

There are big piles of seaweed all over the beach and as I start moving around, some of the smaller brown heaps suddenly move too. They turn out to be birds called Skua who had just quietly been napping until I disturbed them.

 

The other kind of bird we see lots of are the Giant Petrel who have no end of trouble walking. They are clearly a lot more comfortable flying and floating.

Just around the bay is a large King Penguin rookery. This time of the year they are mostly on the island because they're moulting.

Walking in the opposite direction, we find the Royal Penguin rookery. I'm totally in love with those cute little individuals with their punky hairdos. They are actually still busy feeding young ones.

This is their highway up to the rookery

This is the rookery with the chicks.

Landscapes and vegetation are absolutely breathtaking. I can't get enough of it.

The elephant seals are everywhere. They are mainly youngsters this time of the year. Even though they seem pretty lazy, they are still very entertaining to watch.

Some of the young bulls are quite huge.

I spend the rest of my time on the island just sitting in the sand, watching penguins and taking photos.

Eventually, the time comes to travel back to the ship where we sit down to a very late lunch, tired, but very happy.

A bit later on, we all cram into the bar for a recap of the day. Three rangers are on the ship with us for the night. 

We remain moored in the bay which makes for a calm and restful night's sleep.

Thursday, January 14

Very early in the morning, the ship moves back around to Buckle Creek where we were yesterday morning.

It has been raining over night..

Rodney calls a briefing to tell us what a landing would be like and what we could expect to see. A short time later the rangers are taken back to their base and the ship moves on to Lusitania Bay where we could possibly have a one hour Zodiac cruise along the shore.

The weather has been worsening steadily, we can hardly see the shore now. The Zodiac cruise is called off.

The penguins and the birds are enjoying themselves while we relive the memories of our beautiful day yesterday and brace ourselves for the Furious Fifties.