Penguins

Paul and I took an excursion to go see penguins on a nearby island.  This involved a long and bumpy bus ride in a small van...a bit  uncomfortable, but short enough at 1.5 hours.

There were two stops before we reached the island of the penguins.  One was at a picturesque view of the Beagle Chanel where the wind action on the trees had resulted in them being deformed.  It was a lovely afternoon, so we did not feel the wind first hand, but we could see the results first hand.

The second stop was at a museum which is devoted to the study of the marine mammals of the area.  It was very interesting as the people who were there giving explanations were students of marine biology who devoted their time as interns and to study to many bones and skeletons which are in the collection.    The museum contains the bones of animals that have died through natural causes and whose carcases wash up on the beach in the area.  They have 2,800 samples of many of the animals found in the area, including huge sperm whales, orcas, many dolphins, birds and, of course, penguins.

We had a quick guided tour through the small museum, and then it was on to a small boat which took us to the island where the penguins live.

There are two types of penguins on this island, and they are everywhere, there being  more than 7,000 of them.  They had just  finished their breeding season and most of the newly hatched and grown birds had left.   The remaining adults were busy molting and getting ready for a long winter in the ocean.  They were incredibly cute and not afraid of us at all, so we could get close enough to touch them, although we didn't as this could cause their ejection from the colony.