Penguins

THE PENGUINS

Quark Expedition to Antarctica

December, 2007

We are aboard a ship, sailing through the Weddell Sea, exploring the beauty of Antarctica.  There are about 100 of us and we come from all over the world, but mostly from Europe and America. Most of us are solo travelers and grateful for each other's company. Each night, after dinner, we share our photos and stories of the day. 

Most of us focus on the penguins. There are plenty of them. There are thousands and thousands of them.  They are everywhere.  They are loud and smelly and dirty.  And we are falling in love with every single damn one of them.  And we are photographing every one of them.  As one of the men from Holland noted, we have collectively photographed more penguins than all of the penguins in Antarctica combined.  And I have to agree with him.  I think I have four hundred photos myself and that is after two days of editing my photos.

Every gesture they make is worthy of our attention. I have photos of them in the water and out of the water and walking by themselves.  Then they are walking in a group.  They are stealing each other’s pebbles from the nests. Then they are trying to get down the snow embankment.  Then they are trying to get back up the embankment.  Then they are sliding.  Then they are pecking at each other.  Then they are running away from each other.  Then they are running towards each other.  Then they are speaking to each other. Then they are ignoring each other.  Several of them are positioned to make calls to one another.  Other guard the nests.  Some slide down the hills.  Others bath and clean themselves and one another. They swim and dive and flop in the cold water and run right out and slide in the snow.  They follow each other and then they wander off by themselves and then stop and search for their pack.  They rejoin the group and then pick up at the back of the line.  They are always busy and in some sort of motion.

They are also very curious about us. One morning, Esther stretched out on the snow.  A penguin walked up to her and meandered around her and just checked her out.  He looked up and down one side of her and then wandered around to the other side and then he lost interest in her and then wandered off to the group of photographers who were ten feet away, capturing Esther’s moment with the penguin.  As he wondered off, she rolled on her side and got the pictures of the penguin with his new focus of curiosity.

Each night, after dinner, we show each other the multitudes of penguin photos we all took that day and vow that we will not take any more pictures.  We have enough already. But then the next day, we see them again and again, we start taking hundreds and hundreds of photos of them.  And then we sit at dinner and again talk about how we can not, absolutely cannot take any more pictures of penguins.