Land! Oh and penguins

21st January 2016 Part 2
Around 2pm we reached the South Shetland Island and started to navigate between them. There is bare rock, snow and ice. We navigated down McFarlane Strait to reach Half Moon Island.
In the afternoon we made our first visit to land, Half Moon Island. Once on shore we are briefed where we can go as some areas are more protected than others and we don't want to disturb any nests. There are also penguin highways which we are not to walk along. If we cross one of these highways and a penguin is coming we have to wait and give way. We had plenty of time for the visit and in fact I think most people returned to the ship well before the last zodiac was due to leave.
So what animals did we see? There was an Antarctic Fur Seal, Weddell Seals and two Gentoo's in amongst thousands of Chinstrap penguins. There were Chinstrap chicks if you looked hard enough.
The Chinstraps came very close, waddling along right next to you. There were also Skua's and Albatrosses.
The plan tomorrow is to visit Hydrurga Rocks in the morning and Cuverville Island in the afternoon.