Our second day at Campbell Island. There's the option of walking to the top of Mt Honey. We choose the zodiac tour.
We're in one of four zodiacs puttering up one side of the harbour. David tells us a bit about the geology (there were glaciers). A passenger tells us that the island is not volcanic. Rather, the tectonic plate drifted over a hot spot, the hot spot pushed up hot rocks to whatever was above it. There's a similar pattern of old volcanos in Victoria.
The main excitement is birds. That's a something something sooty, says one of the birders. Definitely a something something sooty, is the general agreement. What's a sooty? I ask. Oh, a sooty albatross, thanks.
There's a teal in the water, some albatross chicks in nests. A couple of ?erect crested? penguins... They breed somewhere else so must be here on holidays. It's all interesting to watch -- and I almost learn the names of some birds -- but we are there for the scenery. Which is very pleasant :-)
Deb spots a seal in the water. A bit later, the seal checks out our rubber ducky. It pops up nearby, jumps a bit out of the water, follows us. Then disappears again.
High speed back to the ship...
Where we spend some time defrosting. Relaxing. Waiting for lunch.
After lunch: We walk to Beaman something (saddle?). It's a lookout -- which looks out towards where we reached the far coast yesterday. It's boardwalk all the way... Easy enough on the way up but we're tiring on the return journey.
The highlight is nesting albatrosses. And -- if we had waited an hour or so -- there may have been "gamming" albatrosses: in the evenings, they fly around. We walk up, admire nesting albatrosses, check the view, walk back again.
There are other birds. Little pippins, which hop round within a metre of us. We see two snipe. Hard to spot, apparently, they tend to disappear into the bush. Huh! we see two of them :-)
This evening is the variety show. Lots of fun, singing, dancing, jokes. There are several references to "Nick & Debra in the Heritage Suite", so I invite everyone up, tomorrow morning, for an Open Cabin. Deb is no longer speaking to me. Ah well.
After dinner we up anchor and sail away. Past the Otago, a large part of the NZ navy. They arrived this afternoon and will stay a few days, I'm not sure why. The Otago is grey. And perhaps a little bit smaller than the Shokalskiy. I couldn't see any Maori canoe paddlers.
I've had a report that the Spot Tracker appears to be working. It should now show us leaving Campbell Island. Heading north. To Port Bluff, our final port. (And for those who came in late: you can see the track on a website, the address is in one of the first few blog posts.)
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