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| Imperial Shags at Cooper Bay, South Georgia |
Friday, November 10 - Cooper Bay, South Georgia
From our daily briefing: “Cooper Island is a small island, 2 miles (3.2 km) long, which lies at the north side of the entrance to Drygalski Fjord, off the southeast end of South Georgia. It was discovered by a British expedition under James Cook in 1775, and named for Lieutenant Robert Palliser Cooper, an officer aboard HMS Resolution. A navigable channel, Cooper Sound, nearly 1 mile (1.6 km) wide, separates Cooper Island from the coast of the main island of South Georgia. There is a small bay, known as Cooper Bay.”
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| Our Zodiacs move in close to view the nesting macaroni penguins among the tussock grass |
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| The penguin colony is above the snowfield midway up the cliff |
We went out with naturalist John Pachuca to explore Cooper Bay. The swells were pretty big, but he’s a great driver and didn’t splash us. It was raining lightly, so I had to keep wiping my iPhone and my glasses. We headed out over to the left side of the bay and saw our first chinstrap penguins! (I was so excited because of grandson Calvin and his Octonauts cartoon show about chinstrap penguins!) We also saw lots of macaroni penguins, especially on the beach. The penguins are named after the Macaronis from Italy - the ones that dressed fancy and had yellow plumes in their hats. Yes, the same ones as in the song, Yankee Doodle Dandy. The beaches were packed with elephant and fur seals, and we saw a number of them swimming as well. Some came close to the Zodiac to check us out. The bay was filled with giant petrels, including a large white variant. As we proceeded along the beach, we also saw king penguins and gentoos, so in all we saw four different kinds of penguin species. We were out for about 45 minutes and it was wet & windy the whole time. One of our colleagues was cold and asked to go in, so we did. While we waited to return in our Zodiac, I got to watch them load the empty Zodiacs back into the boat with a crane. Fascinating!
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| A curious fur seal comes out to greet our Zodiac |
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| Macaroni penguins |
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| You can recognize the macaronis by their yellow crests and pink feet |
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| Michael's having a great ride with naturalist John |
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| Imperial shags |
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