To the squawking of the Royal and King Penguins, we bid a fond farewell to Macquarie Island and started in on the last leg of our voyage. I passed up the last landing on Macquarie yesterday fearing that a rough pounding on rhe zodiac might trigger another sciatica session.
Now looking at the next three days at sea without much to post about except occasional rough patches, I thought I’d post a few shots taken by my good friend Leonard Sussman.
Originally from San Francisco, Leonard lives in Brooklyn with another dear friend, Bonnie Stein, whom Alison and I met during my law school days. He taught photography at Baruch College in NY for many years and has built a remarkable portfolio largely of landscapes.
He has a book coming out in May documenting his 55-day trip on an icebraker to the North Pole. He gave a well-attended presentation in the Mawson’s lecture theater today. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand with one amazing shot after another mostly from his numerous trips to Svalbard and Longerbin in northern Norway.
Leonard specializes in the Arctic but has also been to the Antarctic Peninsula which is south of Cape Horn. When about a year ago Cousin Lester suggested we travel to Antarctica I quickly roped Leonard in and he helped select the trip we are now on.
Here are a few of his shots from this trip
The last of these shows Mt Erebus on Ross Island puffing away. Hard to believe that two men from Shackelton’s Nimrod crew climbed this baby.
You’ll recall my cellphone camera’s battery gave out shortly after I hit the beach on Macquarie two days ago. The good news is that blog followers can now get an idea of that most remarkable day from pictures taken by someone who really knows what he’s doing and with a Real McCoy camera.
Macquarie features the only royal penguin colony in the world. Get a load of this:
Macquarie has both king (left) and royal penguins. The first pic shows the amazing colony of Royals on a large patch a short walk up from the beach. The photos can’t convey the pungent smell and loud mass squawking.
We had a one in a million day on Macquarie – broad sunshine, moderate winds and comfortable temps on an island that gets rain and high winds 330 days a year. The landscape is also striking
Meanwhile, I’ve been helping Lester write what I am referring to as his Memoirs, and what he calls a few stories, regarding his career in Baxter Park and elsewhere. I’m enjoying playing Bob Gottlieb to his Robert Caro (if you don’t get the reference it’ll do you good to look it up).I’m hoping to overcome his innate modesty in a future post about his accomplishments.
Kenway Goes South 