The ship moved overnight. We moved 61 kn in 11 hours so we were going very slowly to avoid hitting any ice. Our destination was Danco Island. Danco Island lies in the southern end of the Errera channel. It is relatively small, 1.6 km long, but quite high (180 m or 590 ft). The view from the top of the island is spectacular due to the heavily crevasses glaciers in the surrounding mountains. Beautiful rolled iceberg also tend of collect in this area of the channel. It is also home to 1,600 breeding pairs of gentoo penguins which breed quite high on the slopes.
We were hoping to kayak but it was too windy. So we went ashore. There were lots of gentoo penguins. We could get a sense of the “penguin highways” that the penguins use to get to the water. We learned that penguins nest on land so the penguins who arrive at the island early to build their nest have to go quite high where the wind has blown the snow off the rock. This means they have to walk quite a way to get to the water to feed. Gentoo penguins lay two eggs so many of the penguins had two chicks. You can get quite close to them. They will start to walk away from you if they feel uncomfortable by your presence. Sometimes they are walking and will stop until you cross their path. While we were waiting for the zodiac there were three penguins who came ashore and just hung around for awhile because they felt like they had no where to go. Eventually they got back in the water and swam to another spot. Here are more penguin pictures.
We walked up to the top of the island. It was about a 30 minute walk over rocks. The view from the top was pretty good, even though it was a little overcast. Here are some pictures.
After lunch we went to Waterboat Point the location of a Chilean research station. I think we went there mostly because everyone wanted to actually stand on the continent. Thus far we had been on islands but not yet been on the continent. The research station has 11 Chilean military personnel and they do some meteorological and penguin research. There were loads of gentoo penguins there. Here are some pictures of the research station.
We were going to stop in paradise harbor or at least zodiac cruise but it was too windy so that was scrapped. At that point we had to start back for Ushuaia. The seas were pretty rough but Rick and I felt fine.