During lunch, we sailed back eastwards along the coast to St. Andrews Bay, where we spend the afternoon. This very scenic bay has a long curving beach which  provided  a good landing spot. The area is backed by the Heany and Cook glaciers, two large, impressive rivers of ice that empty into the St. Andrews vicinity. We couldn't see them well because of the low clouds, but those same low clouds made for excellent light for photographing penguins.  All 300,000 birds! The rookery is somewhat isolated by the meltwater rivers created by the glaciers, so we enjoyed some shallow streams and mud as we wandered around the rookery.

While we were here we got to witness two important forms of penguin behavior: the passing of the chick and penguin sex. It took over one and half hours for a parent who had just returned from the sea to locate its mate, trumpet back and forth, transfer the chick from one parent to the other, and then have the new parent begin feeding. This is a critical step, as the chick is very vulnerable when it is moving between parents. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and noise-making going on, but the chick finally received its meal. Penguin sex wasn't nearly as exciting. A total of about 3 minutes, and the actual "act" only about 3 seconds.

In addition to the king penguins, we saw many elephant seals, sea birds, skuas etc., and we also saw a melanistic penguin - its feathers were the wrong color! Instead of having a white front it had a black front. This is a mutation in the genes that control pigmentation in the feathers. This penguin will probably not mate successfully (other pengs will think it unattractive) and so the trait won't be passed on.