11-Feb:
At Cape Adare

In which Mark and Dara see their first penguins and
set foot on the Antarctic continent for the first time.
Cape Adare was our second landing, but our first in the Antarctic itself. Even better, as far as Mark was concerned, was that once the ship dropped anchor it stabilized enough that Mark could keep down breakfast -- if two eggs and half a slice of toast count as breakfast. Still, this was better than the previous few days when nothing would stay down.

Cape Adare has two interesting features: an abandoned explorer's hut and a large colony of Adele penguins. There were several thousand of them even though we were arriving rather late in the year for the penguin colony. Earlier there would have been tens of thousands or even 100,000. Most of the penguins still at Cape Adare were smaller, first year penguins. Sadly most of them hadn't grown and matured fast enough and as a result would be dead in a few months as they wouldn't be able to get large enough to survive the coming Antarctic winter.

They were, nevertheless, charming and mostly unafraid of humans and were quite willing to come right up to us.


Mark and Penguin (Naiad unloading tourists in back)

With this landing, Mr. Bunny set paw on his fifth continent! Later, after we arrived in Sydney, he would make it six continents visited. The only one left to do is South America. He's got his Hayward sweatshirt on, but, somehow has forgotten to wear the pants specially made for him to keep warm on this trip.


Mr. Bunny at Cape Adare

A fairly common sight was Adelie penguins perched on ice flows like this one. It isn't uncommon to find flows like this miles from land with penguins standing around looking like they are waiting for a bus.


This closeup shows one of the first year penguins. He doesn't have any black under his chin, which indicates that he isn't an adult. The fuzz sticking up on his head is what is left of his brown baby downy coat. He is almost finished moulting, but until he does, he can't go fishing for food.


This young penguin is in even worse shape than the one above. His down makes him look like he is wearing a fur coat, but he has a lot more left to moult and not enough time.


And finally, the hut! Words fail. It is ... a hut. That brown mushy stuff around it isn't dirt, it's penguin poop. The whole site is covered with the stuff. This is where Mark and Dara's clothing begins to smell like penguin. As the trip progresses, this becomes more annoying (as well as pungent), the only mitigating fact being that everyone else was starting to smell like penguin, too.


The Hut