The last 24 hours have been amazing. The helicopter from Endurance did not make it in but we have an amazing set of visitors of other sorts drop by.Fin Whales, Humpbacks and Minke Whales were all spotted yesterday afternoon in the area just off station. These are our first whale sightings of the summer and exciting to everyone. Also last night, we spotted a group of Chinstrap Penguins ashore at Split Rock Island. Of the three local penguin species, "Chinnies" are the least common and even the old timers here were excited.
And then this morning, unbelievably, a Chinstrap came ashore here during our morning break and while we were watching it, a juvenile Humpback Whale swam right up along the pier, playing for a good long time. Seemingly, they were both here for friendly hello and a look at us, or perhaps, for the fishing off Torgerson Island. Fantastic !!
I don't photos of anything yet, just one of the Chinnies on Split Rock.
The Endurance vessel is coming in this morning and visiting via zodiacs. More later.
12 comments:
I have never even heard of chinstrap penguins before - but certainly see where the name comes from!
Oh my gosh! Who's idea was it to name a vessel "Endurance" that heads down to Antarctica? If I was a sailor, I wouldn't want to be shackled to a name like that! Seems like bad luck.
Your giant petrel looks a heck of a lot like an albatross. Isn't that another harbinger of bad luck? Well, if the smoke clears enough later, perhaps I'll clear the ashes off my car, and take a trip to the library and look it up. I'm sure all that luck business is just a myth. No really, I'm sure your Internet postings are not causing bad luck for the rest of us. I'm positive about it, in fact. Please do not feel guilty just because our financial institutions are falling like dominoes, and civilization as we know it is crumbling like a five year old re-gifted fruitcake. It's just a coincidence! Really.
--Jay
Jay, I think the smoke has probably gone to your head ! Bad luck certainly seems to be on your mind, eh ? Just take a cold drink of water and you're surely be okay. :) L p.s. registration for Yukon River Quest 2009 is open, have you registered ? I have !
Ginny, yes, the name is apt, isn't it ? You know, there is a marvelous tie-in here to a children's book I saw earlier this year. Its called 'And Tango Makes Three' and is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male Chinstrap Penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo who pair bonded. When keepers saw them trying to hatch a rock they substituted a fertile egg (it was the second egg from a pair that had previously been unable to successfully hatch two eggs) which Roy and Silo successfully hatched and raised.
My friend and I were recently discussing about how technology has become so integrated in our day to day lives. Reading this post makes me think back to that debate we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.
I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Societal concerns aside... I just hope that as the price of memory decreases, the possibility of uploading our memories onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's a fantasy that I daydream about every once in a while.
(Posted from Nintendo DS running [url=http://will-the-r4-r4i-work.wetpaint.com/]R4i[/url] FFBrows)
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