A return to Seal Beach, blergh! - Monday 28 February to Saturday 5 March

This week has been a relatively quiet week of good weather, with no storms like last week and no more anniversaries. I have had to return to the hated Seal Beach, which is still over populated with large, aggressive, toothy and smelly seals. I have been weighing and measuring adult penguins prior to the moult which will happen later this month. Man, have the little buggers managed to put on weight! The largest of them are over five kilograms, which is massive for a forty centimeter high bird. Seal Beach is just as smelly and unpleasant as usual so I am glad to report that I managed to conclude the weighing and measuring this week, meaning that I will only have to make periodic visits this month to check for birds with loggers that need to be recovered and downloaded before being put out again at the beginning of April.

Other than the visit to Seal Beach, it has been a pleasant week, with a my first visit to Admirals, the bay just to the north east of the base. You have to abseil to access it and have to jumar up the rope to get out and thankfully Michelle was kind enough to volunteer to come with me, otherwise I would not have been allowed to go as we are not allowed to do that sort of thing on our own. Admirals (despite the presence of seals and penguins) is really, really spectacular. It is a small semi-circular bay surrounded by high cliffs and filled with sea stacks. It reminds me of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, where the movie "The Beach" was filmed but less tropical, sandy and warm of course. There is a wonderful, sheltered spot under a Phylica tree at the top of the cliffs from where you can watch the whole bay, it is a fantastic place to come and sit and unwind.

Admirals

This is being posted today, Saturday, rather than tomorrow because Michelle, Robyn, Mornay and I are leaving early tomorrow for Edinburgh Peak, via Tafelkoppie and Gonydale. Ostensibly the trip is so that I can complete part of the "round-island count" of nesting albatrosses and check nests at Tafelkoppie and Gonydale but really it is so that we can say we have been to the highest point on the island. Just don't tell my boss :-)

A rainbow this morning, hopefully a sign that the weather will be great for our trip