I have been fortunate enough to travel twice to the bottom of our planet over the last 20 years. While the variety and numbers of wildlife may change slightly from one decade to the next, the physical geography does not change. Its a land of extreme isolation, massive scale and potential life threatening weather extremes. But in the midst of all of that, there can be exquisite beauty within the freezing cold water, the ice and the snow .
Penguins
In January 2006 we circumnavigated the Scotia Sea aboard the Prof Multinovsky. Our landfalls included the Falkland Islands, South Georgia , South Shetland Islands, South Orkney Islands , Elephant Island, the Antarctic Archipelago, and the Antarctic mainland. We encountered 7 different species of penguin over the course of the 19 day trip. The largest species that we saw was the King penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus. Other species included the Rock Hopper, the Gentoo, the Adelie, the Macaroni, the Chin Strap, and the Magellanic. Several breeding colonies of the King penguin were located on the beaches of South Georgia. It was estimated that there were at least 300,000 the adults, plus 75,000 chicks, on the Salisbury Plain beach alone!
