The good luck with weather ran out today, and we were greeted by icy, blowing snow upon arrival at the macaroni penguin colony at Cooper Bay. It was too nasty to take out a camera, so the macaronis remain the only penguins I’ve seen but don’t have any decent photos. There were two options at the landing: walk through fur seals on the beach to see macaronis hopping up to their colony, or climb a steep, slick slope up to the colony. I ended up helping folks along the slippery rocks on the beach, and at one point the path led past a brown waterfall raining down from the colony — use your imagination to guess why the water was brown. Dubbed “Guano Falls”, the wind was whipping the water around, making for the single most disgusting hike I’ve ever done. On the way back I stood fairly far out from the cliffs, telling people that I’d help them through deeper water, or they could walk by the cliffs “but I really recommend that you keep your mouth tightly shut if you do so”.
The winds blasted us out several hours early, so we’re making a departure to Drygalski Fjord and on to the South Orkney islands. I’m currently up on the bridge, partly to watch the wildlife on the seas outside, and partly because everyone’s gear is drying in the lower decks, and I fear that as clothes dry the full effect of Guano Falls may soon be wafting through the air.