December 30 that afternoon at Cooper Bay, South Georgia

If the morning wasn’t enough, the afternoon saw us out looking for more wildlife. This time we were after Macaroni Penguins - and more fur seals - at Cooper Bay.

Yep , they were up there over that hill!

We landed on that beach amongst the rocks and sea lions.

We split in two groups and half of us landed at a narrow beach full of fur seals and headed up a steep slope to the penguin colony. I took one look at the slope and my heart sank. Lindsay kept telling me “you can do it” but oh dear what a climb nevertheless I did give it a go. In the end, it proved too much for me (and Lindsay) and we returned to the beach. I have to tell you that we were wearing gumboots (at least a size too big!) and life jackets plus our other clobber  – I mean really!  Lindsay and I stood on the beach with one of the guides, the gentle Lizelle, for about an hour fending off mother fur seals – the beach was a nursery and woe betide you if you got between mother and pup. The mothers are extremely intimidating and aggressive and not in the least afraid. We had to be wary and learnt to stand our ground. Eventually the penguin-hunters descended with varying degrees of grumbles about the difficulty of the climb – both ways. And then the second wave of passengers arrived on shore to tackle the slope and the rest of us hopped into the zodiacs to explore.  

A nursery for adorable sea lions

"Stay away from my babies or else!”

This guy would have tackled anyone - they were dotted all through the tussocks.

Sweet little pets!

There was a creche of a number of youngsters watched over by a very large female.

And then the group descended many grumbling as they came - too hard for many!

But lucky us saw lots of Macaroni Penguins closeup without the climb! The origin of the name? The person who named them reckoned they looked like Yankee Doodle – you know the one who “stuck a feather in his cap and called him Macaroni”. Very jaunty! 

Lots of them spilling down the hill.

We had expected to do a seaweed survey with Russell but the tide was too high. Instead he took us poking into narrow crevasses and through skeins of rubbery kelp. 

Macaroni Penguins - very jaunty

Fascinating coastline

It was quite exciting but extremely cold. Time was slipping by, so we headed to another beach to look mainly for Gentoo Penguins. It was a surf beach so we had to be careful not to get caught in the waves (I think Russell would have liked to surf in on the zodiac!)

Russell is a mad driver and took the zodiac at full pelt through waves and increasing swells. Lindsay was in a lot of pain each time the zodiac crashed back on the water (we both had sore ribs from our polar plunge). The weather continued to deteriorate and by the time we got back ship-side there was quite a large swell. The result was that I missed the step going between zodiac and ship. With no help or support from eitherthe seaman at the portal (obviously new to the job) or our zodiac driver, I fell heavily into the ship and  sustained a lot of bruises and swellings on my legs but no breakages (2 years later I still have the scars).

This was today - a great, but very long day