Today Was All About Penguins. Indeed.

The Husband has a nasty habit of saying that this trip is all about Dawn seeing penguins.

I beg to differ. 

This trip is somewhat about Dawn seeing penguins.

Ok.

It’s a lot about Dawn seeing penguins.

We tried several times in Australia and New Zealand but the penguin gods weren’t smiling down on us during that trip. I was only slightly devastated to learn that in order to take a trip across the Magellan Strait to view the breeding grounds of the Magellanic penguins, I would have to suffer five hours on a small boat designed as a device of torture for anybody who suffers from chronic motion sickness or vertigo. That was definitely out of my range. (As it turned out, that was the port that was closed during this trip so all of those people felt the angry wrath of the penguin gods that day.)

But today…today was the day. This day was many years in the making, hoping, wishing, praying, and just flat out begging for. 

And it wasn’t really all that easy to do. We had to leave our tendered ship in the bay just off of the coast of Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. As an aside…I am going to require a history lesson from both my British and Argentinian friends as to why this little piece of rock is so very important to both sides. There are still signs up all over the islands warning Argentinians to respect the sovereignty of the place and to renounce their claim to the land. We were told that up until a few years ago, Argentinians weren’t allowed to even visit the island but that has now been relaxed. I was also stunned to learn that the minefields that were laid down by the Argentinians during the 1982 conflict are just now starting to be removed. The Islanders, or Kelpers as they call themselves, merely fenced them off until help arrived in the form of Zimbabwe explosive experts just two years ago.

But old grudges aside, today was all about penguins. After the tender docked in Port Stanley, we boarded a small van that shepherded us to Bluff’s Cove about thirty minutes away. From there we met our 4x4 driver Ron, a fifth-generation kelper, who traversed the very uneven fields to the cove.

We were mesmerized at first glance. Hundreds of Gentoo penguins were there in the rookeries nesting with the newly hatched chicks. Unfazed by the human gazes, the birds were very happy to preen, call out, and nestle with their families. At times it felt as though they were posing just for us. In the middle of the Gentoo colony was a small group of King or Emperor penguins. (Think March of the Penguins.) These tall and majestic creatures were having a ball with us idiots and we were able to witness them sitting on eggs and passing off the eggs to their mates. The Husband and I stood in the blustering winds for over an hour just snapping photos and getting right down on the ground with these beautiful creatures.

This area is one of the last on earth that has been left untouched by human invaders. The birds are happy to frolic back and forth between their rookeries to the shores of the Atlantic and don’t care one whit about the prying camera lenses or a few bipods. The locals have taken great care to ensure the penguins' safety and well-being and are extraordinarily protective of their winged neighbours. It is truly a symbiotic relationship that has developed here.

The Kelpers are a lovely bunch. They are excited to greet the tourists and sell them all that they can but they are just as excited to talk about their home. Ron told us that he wouldn’t live anywhere else and as long as this place is under a British flag, he will remain.

We have one other opportunity to view penguins in Puerto Madryn in a couple of days but I am not sure how anything can top the feeling of pure exhilaration of today. Today was most definitely ALL ABOUT PENGUINS.