We watched the seabirds around the ship as we sailed to Enderby Island. When we anchored I was so happy to see so many Yellow-eyed penguins on an nearby island. We didn’t zodiac or kayak near that group but we saw a few of them elsewhere.
Today Tibor and I got to go kayaking. We ended up going quite a bit longer than we expected and we were both tired by the time we finished. We were out about 4 hours and had kayaked over 11 kilometers. The sad part for me was that I couldn’t photograph the penguins. I didn’t bring my big camera because I was afraid it would get wet and my GoPro can’t zoom in.
It’s a good thing I didn’t bring my camera because the first thing I noticed after Tibor and I were in the kayak for a little while was that my dry bag had fallen off the kayak. Luckily there wasn’t too much in it and it was floating. If my camera would have been in it, it would have sank. The ocean was also pretty calm so we could see it and we used the time to figure out how to steer the kayak. The kayak used pedals to turn. I never did get the hang of it but we did retrieve the dry bag.
We had a seal follow us for a bit and another seal charged one of the other kayaks.
One zodiac takes the kayakers out to the kayak spot and a second zodiac takes the kayaks. The kayakers load into the kayaks from the zodiac and then it returns to the ship. The other zodiac follows the kayakers around. If you get tired you can rejoin the zodiac and follow the other kayakers. Once kayaking is finished, a zodiac comes back out for the kayakers and the kayaks are pulled behind the other zodiac.
We got back after the official lunch was over but they kept the dining room open for us.
Right after lunch we had the opportunity to take a zodiac to the Enderby Island landing spot where we could take a walk on the boardwalk. It was such a fun walk- we had good birds along the way and saw a Southern Royal Albatross on a nest just a short distance from the boardwalk. At the end of the boardwalk (on the other side of the island from the landing spot) we took a short trail to an overlook where we saw the Light Fronted Dusky albatross on its nest. There were lots of albatross flying around too.
The plants along the trail were beautifully colored. We saw the Megaherbs- which I thought were huge plants that were herbs but nope, they are really plants with colorful (maybe large) flowers!
On the way back I surprised a Yellow-eyed penguin on the boardwalk. I was super excited to see it up close but it was just a glimpse since it left the boardwalk almost immediately.
There are regulations and trail cameras to stop folks from walking up the beach or across to the trail when there are penguins present. There was no concern about sea lions. The first zodiacs to land had to wait for a while for penguins to leave before they could disembark and start walking. We didn’t have that problem.
There were lots of sea lions (Big males, smaller/paler females and tiny babies) on the beach at the landing site. The males were snorting and charging at other males to defend their territory. The sea lion population has decreased rapidly in recent years- some of it is because of a bacterial infection. They are doing a study to see if pups can be vaccinated against it. The pups that have had a vaccination shot are marked with a ‘little cap’. There are a couple of pups in the photos below that are wearing the ‘cap’.
I didn’t go back on the zodiac immediately as I was hoping to see the yellow eyed penguins walking around and I got lucky- one came just as we were ready to leave.
