New Zealand Sub Antarctic Islands – Macquarie Island – Part 2

The ship left Buckles Bay while we were having lunch.  The rules of Macquarie Island travel required that we take a “ranger” with us from the permanent station to insure we did not break those rules.  As we drove south towards Sandy Bay, our next stop, the weather began to return to its normal state: colder, windier and more overcast.

Upon arriving at Sandy Bay zodiacs were launched and I was able to come ashore with the first group.  My goal was to collect images of Royal Penguins.  Royal Penguins only breed on Macquarie Island and nowhere else that is known.  All crested penguins share many traits in common.  Royal Penguins appear to some experts to be a subspecies of Macaroni Penguin.  One primary distinguishing characteristic is that the Royal Penguin side of the head and the chin are white whereas in the Macaroni Penguin these areas are black.  An important environmental characteristic is that Royal Penguins breed only on Macquarie Island. Macaroni Penguins breed in many places around the Southern Ocean.

The Royal Penguins on Macquarie Island were fortunate to survive the 19th Century.  According to historic records the animal oil collectors killed hundreds of thousands every year when they could no longer find fur and elephant seals in sufficient numbers to make their trips financially successful.  By the early 1900’s Royal Penguins had almost died out and it was only in the interim period when the oil collectors stopped coming did they successfully rebuild their remnant populations. After 1933 when Macquarie Island was declared a sanctuary and up until today the Royal Penguin colonies have grown to over 2 million members.

Sandy Bay contains King and Gentoo Penguin colonies as well as its share of fur and elephant seals.  I was busy with the Royal Penguins but back aboard ship several people related stories about the curiosity and approachability of the King and Gentoo Penguins in this location.

The weather had started to turn much colder and windier and by the time I returned to the ship in the late afternoon I was cold.  I was so cold that I felt I had to take a hot shower to ward off a severe chill before eating dinner.

After dinner the Captain turned the ship around and sailed through the night back to Buckles Bay where we could drop the “ranger” off at his home station in the morning.  With our morning arrival came a “howling” wind, horizontally driven snow and one could barely see the high bluffs where the day before, “in the best weather we have had in months,” we felt we were landing in a tropical wonderland.  I like zodiac travel and feel safe in them even though I know that one can be in danger of flipping a lightly manned zodiac in a high wind and rough seas.  I was happy that we had landed yesterday and I was not accompanying the “ranger” back to the main station.

The zodiac taxi safely returned and was hauled aboard.   We headed south again but this time for Lusitania Bay and the large King Penguin colony located there.  While the weather did moderate somewhat the expedition leader decided not to land. We cruised the coast toward Hurd Point.  I was able to see the vast numbers of King Penguins in the colony.  There were a number of passing moments of extraordinary and compelling beauty when the clouds would part, sun shine would stream down in shafts of light that would illuminate sections of beach or snow spackled peaks that run the length of the eastern coast of Macquarie.

The Spirit of Enderby changed course and headed northeast for Campbell Island.  The wind was at our stern and this made it possible to find shelter at the bow for observing sea birds and not be frozen out by the weather or drowned by waves and bow spray.

New Zealand Sub Antarctic Islands: Previous Blog : Part 5 < > Next Blog : Part 7