I've got mail

A wee flurry of postcards the other day! mostly showing pictures of clean beaches in Arnside! How nice. Thank you! But perhaps I didn't distribute my address well enough before I left - the addresses used were varied and imaginative. One just arrived, 'Port Lockroy, West Antarctica'! and another 'Historic Site 61' - well done, Steve and Paula, you did your homework! And Hoorah for the British postal system.

We are a bit hectic here, three ships today, we are about to go out for lunch, and going out also to give a presentation and have dinner later on a large ship from the UK, Saga Ruby, which doesn't actually land passengers here because there are too many of them. They have some supplies from the UK to deliver, and have also very kindly agreed to take some personal stuff home for us. So packing up already, in any spare minute, it feels strange when we still have three weeks here. We have managed to fill three boxes and a couple of holdalls between us, hope we don't get invited out to any smart yachts, all my good clothes have gone in. Thank goodness for that! Because I will be taking a detour on the way home - been tempted by the thought of a couple of weeks in Argentina and will be flying home on the 26th March now. Not sure where to go, but as long as it is far enough north to relax in the sun I'll be happy. One of the ships is bringing down a Lonely Planet Argentina guide f
rom Ushuaia, so if I can squeeze in the time to read some of it that will help the planning.

However with 21 ships before the end of Feb there won't be a lot of free time. And with so many early starts and late nights - first ship in at 7am this morning, out til midnight the night before - we're all beginning to feel a bit frazzled! It'll be a lot of fun though I think, of course we will have to celebrate the end of the season with each ship visit.

The babies are growing fast now, they are all a pretty large uniform size and this seems to be causing the skuas to go hungry as there are no smaller weaker ones to pick off. We are seeing the skuas looking quite desperate pacing round the flocks of chicks, and just jumping on top of any they can reach. However they seem to be very afraid of getting injured themselves, and won't risk a peck from a protective adult. We did see one baby get 'got' the other day, just in front of the boat shed, and the poor little thing was eaten alive, still feebly flapping for a long long time while the skuas had their grisly lunch. Heart-breaking to watch. However we do have to keep reminding ourselves that there really isn't much room for any more penguins on this little island! Rick's favourite joke in his introductory talk, once he has everyone hating evil skuas, is that the world would be overrun by gentoos if something wasn't eating them!