Formal Night with the Penguins

Thursday, December 28, 2006
Puerto Montt, Chile, Sailing Away Northbound

"Are you crazy?" called a friendly woman in spaghettiti-strap dress through the cracked-open door onto the windy Promenade Deck. I was dancing in the fog and singing to the birds. I grinned back at her, "No! I'm watching penguins!"

Her husband in a tuxedo stood behind her but I was the one in the real penguin suit -- the penguin *watching* suit, that is: all bundled up with hiking boots, hat, gloves, and raincoat. I had planned on a quiet evening at my desk, but no sooner had I settled in than I glanced out my window and saw sandy cliffs where I expected blank sea. I ran up one floor to the outside deck to see what I could see.

The passage westward from Puerto Montt to the open sea was far longer than I'd realized on our previous transit in the dark. We skirted a series of islets in Chiloe Sound and then sailed for quite a while between Isla Grande de Chiloe to the south and the mainland on the north. Two hours earlier when we first sailed from the town, I had delighted in a flock of sooty shearwaters surprisingly near shore, mobbing a small open fishing boat a stone's throw from the shoreline. But my birdwatching day wasn't nearly over.

The outgoing tide caused a lengthwise rip down the narrow channel, right next to our ship, so for nearly an hour I was able to watch pelicans, terns, cormorants, gulls, and yes, even a couple hundred Magellanic penguins fishing along the current. It was so fun to find out that the jumping miniature dolphins were actually penguins! They are supposedly very hard to spot at sea, but for 45 minutes our course was perfectly parallel to their elongated fishing spot. Penguins surfaced nearly every minute.

Penguins porpoise beautifully, arcing out of the water like slick black missiles three or four times after a long dive. Then they pop to the surface to float and look around -- and vanish. They appeared alone or in groups of two or three and dove swiftly, often leaving nothing but a surreptitious splash to let you know you missed them this time.

We were near the northern end of the Magellanic penguin's range and the southern end of the endangered Humboldt penguin's range. On a small island nearby is the only colony where the two species are seen nesting together. I'm trying to figure out if a day trip to see these guys is feasible from Puerto Montt for next time.

Since we were coming north from Cape Horn to Puerto Montt we also saw our first Peruvian pelicans of the cruise. They are like brown pelicans but have stark white rectangles on their wings, and their deep mahogany neck coloration is even more striking. Cormorants were flying everywhere, and wafting strings of South American terns lofted over the riptide surface. Sea lions popped up here and there. Everyone was digging in at the seafood restaurant.

Just when we started to feel the faintest beginning of the ocean rollers there appeared a long rocky shoal off the seaward end of an island. The ebbing tide and incoming swell made perfect standing waves over the shallows, and the sea lions were absolutely frolicking, surfing in the tall waves. They rolled over and over like kids at the beach, periodically stopping and looking around, probably barking though I couldn't hear them, then diving into the combers again.

It was incredible to see it all. The viewing conditions were pitiful, granted, with fog, spitting rain, dripping tender boats overhead, and failing light, but it was enough to show me the biological richness of this magical corner of the South American coast. Thank goodness for quality waterproof binoculars and a window in my cabin.

This whole show went on and on while the ship's formal night stage production started and finished in the huge theater behind me. I was utterly alone on the open deck while a few hundred people listened to Broadway tunes just inside the steel wall. I'm sure the adagio couple (the flyers) were as impressive as the penguins, but for my penguin show, I got to sing too.