Le Soleal arrives at Macquarie Island early in the morning for a 3 day visit. Day 1 is at the ANARE station at the northern end of the island, Day 2 will be at Sandy Bay, an hours sail south of the station, and Day 3 is further south at Lusitania Bay.
We are still on NZ time on Le Soleal, so 9am ship time is 7am Macquarie time. The operating times for zodiacs are restricted to 7am to 7pm Macquarie time, and there are strict limits on the number of people allowed on shore in various parts of the island. The first zodiacs are dropped at 10am Le Soleal time.
As it the 5th of January, the Australian and French flags (in honour of the visiting Le Soleal) are at half mast to mark the anniversary of ANARE expeditioners who have died in the field.
At the ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition) station, 100 passengers are permitted on shore, so we are allocated time slots ashore by group for guided walks amongst the elephant seals, Gentoo penguins and King penguins.
The bull elephant seals have departed for the year, leaving a number of juvenile bull elephants seals competing for the attention of a few juvenile females. Plenty of ‘mock’ fighting practice is happening, which still draws blood on a number of individuals. Others are molting, and clearly miserable until it’s over.
The gentoo and king penguins are also molting and miserable, although there are some cute fledging gentoo chicks, and the requisite skuas and giant petrels.
The afternoon is spent on a two hour tour of the ANARE station, including afternoon tea in the mess hall. Australia Post until recently ran a small post office service from this base, however the personnel appointed apparently found it too isolated and removed themselves on the ship immediately prior to our visit.
The weather is quite decent for Macquarie Island – very windy, with the occasional patch of sunlight. Tomorrow we are heading further south on the island to Sandy Bay, with 4 Parks and Wildlife rangers on board overnight to supervise our visit to the King Penguin and Royal Penguin colonies at Sandy Bay.
