We have determined that the natural wonders we are experiencing on this trip are its highlights, and nothing is more interesting in nature than the wildlife that inhabits it. Our most memorable part of riding through Tierra el Fuego Park was happening on a not-so-wild brown fox that was busy scamming the tourists for food. I’ve seen many a dog that looked just like that fox, but few dogs can draw tourist attention the way this fox managed to do. Passengers will look out to the sea for endless periods of time just to catch a glimpse of a bounding dolphin or, joy or joys, a breaching humpback whale. Well, the billed highlight of this voyage, in terms of wildlife, has to be the beloved penguin. There are several of the stops that feature penguin watching.
There are 18 recognized species of penguins in the world, each with unique characteristics. The most notable varieties are Emperor Penguin (The largest penguin species, standing up to 4 feet tall, native to Antarctica), King Penguin (Second largest species distinguished by bright orange-gold patches on their neck and found on sub-Antarctic islands), Chinstrap Penguin (recognizable by the thin black line under their chin) and Gentoo Penguins (the fastest swimming penguin, reaching speeds up to 22 mph, recognizable by white stripe across the top of their head), and 14 other varieties.
Today we are docked in the harbor of Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands. There is no accessible cruise ship dock so we will once again use a tender boat to get to and from the port. Almost all of the short excursions today are focused on finding penguins. We are very fortunate to have jumped on the shore excursion parade as soon as they were available months ago, so Kim and I will be going to Bluff Cove to see the largest rookery on the island where approximately 1000 of the 1200 penguins that live on this island regularly can be found. The dominant type of penguin that we will see will be the Gentoo but there are supposedly a number of King penguins roosting in that spot as well.
I guess penguins are mostly popular because of their funny and benign look. They waddle from here to there, despite the fact that they are birds. But then again, they are birds who are flightless for the most part and yet they are as aquatically prune as any fish. In fact, fish and plankton are the staples of their penguin diet. Yesterday there was a film about the life of penguins, and while I did not watch it, I have seen it in the past. It chronicles how penguins mate for life, how the female lays the egg, but the male takes the first watch by allowing the egg to rest on his feet while he sits on it with the warmth of his body protecting it. The process of feeding the penguin baby is quite involved since the rookeries are quite a ways from the sea. So alternately, the mother and father run back-and-forth to the ocean, then gobble sustenance to then regurgitate to feed their baby. Since Penguins only lay one egg at a time, it’s important that they work hard for the survival of their chick. Unfortunately, nature, as Darwin himself noted it in these environs 200 years ago, is not always kind and in the case of penguins, as only 10% of those chicks survive to adulthood. The hazards range from aggressive sea birds to leopard seals to less attentive parents, and even bullying from other penguin adults. Penguin life is not as idyllic as we would imagine.
Speaking of less than Idyllic conditions, about 3/4 of our group, including yours truly, have managed to get a mild cold. Luckily, I have a supply of NyQuil and DayQuil tablets, which I am sharing ever so carefully with my colleagues and which are keeping me at least on a relatively even keel. That said, I am feeling a bit on the punky side, which I imagine will help me relate better to the plight of the poor penguins.
I want to take this moment to comment about weather forecasting in these southern regions of the world. In a phrase, the weather forecasts are for shit. I imagine being close to the pole makes it much more difficult to predict the weather patterns, so on any given morning, the predictions are quite a bit different as those the night before and considerably different from what we truly encounter. The weather on this trip overall has been good. We’ve had mostly sun and perhaps a bit cooler than expected weather, but not by more than 5°. Today, the onboard weather service tells us that it’s going to be sunny and cool in the high 40s for the day, but I just heard the cruise director announce that they’re expecting rainy weather today. From my observation here on deck two out the window, I would tend to say that the cruise director is more right than the weather service. In any case, Kim and I both have pretty much the right weather gear, with me wearing a polar tech vest and a windbreaker, which so far have done the trick nicely.
I’m sitting here at Bluff Cove and the southern side of folk Islands about 25 minutes from Port Stanley. The land here on the island is even more desolate than Patagonia with literally no trees mostly either very very low line scrub set amongst various volcanic rocks and low grasses along the beachfront. It’s quite windy and blustery with overcast, and that reminds you that even late summer life in the Falklands is no picnic. The shuttle bus from the port brought us here to Bluff Cove dropping us off 100 yards from the penguin rookery. Local park attendants have set out white flags to indicate the boundaries that should not be exceeded, preventing us from invading the space of these magnificent penguins. After looking at the King penguins and the Gentoo penguins in their natural habitat, and watching them interact with one another for a few minutes, I started the quarter mile walk to the café and gift shop. This took me over low grass and moss along the beach, and I must admit that walking against the wind had its challenges. Kim meanwhile stayed to watch more penguin frolicking. The café, gift shop and museum are set in containers from a container ship. This symbol of impermanence seems somehow appropriate in this barren and forbidding land.
That all makes me wonder why two responsible countries (Argentina and England) would be bothered to go to war to preserve sovereignty in such a place. Clearly the population identifies as British, and equally clearly, the islands rest only 300 miles offshore Argentina, but by choosing such a distant locale some 7,000 miles from England, where hardly any Argentines bother to live, neither side has what looks to be a dominant claim to righteousness. I guess it should be subject to a resident referendum, which is exactly what happened. The latest referendum on sovereignty in the Falkland Islands was held on March 10-11, 2013. In this referendum, the islanders were asked whether they wished to remain a British Overseas Territory. The result was overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining the status quo, with 99.8% voting to remain under British sovereignty (1,513 votes to 3). This referendum was organized to reaffirm the islanders’ desire to remain British in the face of renewed Argentine claims to the islands. The turnout was very high at 92% of eligible voters. I think maybe Argentina needs to get the 1,200 penguins on their side and then maybe they can change this…once the penguins procreate a bit more.