Ship's Position at 12:00:

• 67°15.4' S 65°68.9' E
• Course 280°; Speed 15 kts
• Air temperature 4°C; Wind 14 kts; Direction 270°
• Weather: Sunny, fine; Visibility 10
• Ice Cover: 8/10
• Distance covered past 24 hours: 201.6 nautical miles

I have meant to mention that we left the Cosmonaut Sea sometime on 24 December. Now we're in the Cooperation Sea. Among its features are Pingivin Island (ED)(Existence Doubtful), which is noted in fine purple ink on the chart. The handwriting seems to be that of the mapmaker who did the 2005 revision (footnote at bottom). The Antarctic map is sprinkled with (ED) notations, and historically the region has been a haven for land of dubious authenticity.

This morning the ship has reversed direction. Heavy ice pack was encountered at 01:00 last night on the way to Amanda Bay and the expedition staff and captain decided to try again for Auster Rookery. The distance is not great and on this pass no time is wasted on difficult passages, and also the pack ice has shifted a bit. The helicopters begin carrying passengers over at 13:00 (the staff have already gone to set up landing area, walking paths, etc.). The passengers are organized into five helicopter landing groups, which rotate in order of going; as luck would have it my group is last today. This is a good thing because the last flight back will be at 21:30, and we'll have long shadows and evening light for photography.

The clear weather holds; the wind doesn't suddenly steam up to a screaming gale; an Adelie penguin, addled out of its wits by the noise and the people, is racing around the two tents at the helicopter landing area. From there it's about a one-mile walk to the emperor penguin rookery; the Adelie rookery is visible a couple of miles beyond that, but we do not go so far. The Adelies and emperors don't mix — no penguins share colonies with other penguins, though as we've seen non-penguins can be acceptable.

The emperor penguins are not as large as I've been led to believe, an incorrect impression created by the strange practice of giving bird sizes (at least for penguins) in beak-tip to tail-tip, rather than how high they stand. The emperors are, however, beautifully colored and patterned. The chicks are of assorted sizes; I see a few already molted into first-year adult plumage and a few very small ones, but most of them are nearly as large as their parents and with well-fed beanbag figures. A few are so fat that they appear to have difficulty walking — the chicks mostly don't have the tobogganing trick yet. The black-and-white masks are indeed cute and easy to humanize, on top of the baggy-looking body of the smaller chicks and fluffy cylindrical larger chicks. The mid-level molting chicks have slimmed down to a more adult profile, splotched grey black and white. And all are hungry. I see several beanbag chicks wake sleeping adults to beg for food.

Around 19:00 is penguin rush hour: several trains of tobogganing emperors come in from the sea, which is miles away — a 20-minute helicopter ride for us. A large gang of Adelies come in, too, and charge chaotically, flapping their wings and quonking energetically, through the middle of the emperor penguin colony, which is (demographically) mostly chicks. It happens to be between them and their own nests many miles further from the sea (Adelies need land to nest, and the nearest rock outcrop is nowhere near open water) and they don't see any reason not to continue in a beeline for home. The emperor penguins ignore the fuss; the Adelies emerge on the other side, re-group in their train formation for tobogganing, and carry on.

The emperor penguins are not quiet, though. The chicks whistle for food if there's an adult penguin in sight, with special urgency if they see another chick being fed. When the emperors return, a cascade of their melodious, trumpeting greetings rises. The chicks all begin crying and flapping their wings excitedly, even those who don't have a parent returning. The older chicks try to make the trumpeting sound also, but don't quite have the range.

There are dead chicks at the colony, both old and recently dead, and dying ones too. The weather that delayed the ship was fatal here to chicks not fed up well enough to weather the storm or chicks whose parents didn't return in time — or at all — to feed them during it. The skuas and petrels hanging around are well-fed and insolent. Brown-and-buff South Polar skuas scavenge the dead, but leave the dying alone. Apparently it's rare for a skua to actually kill something; waiting around for the inevitable is probably a better use of energy. Chicks are dying because the ice we're standing on, sea-ice that retreats every year, has not retreated very far yet this year, and their parent penguins are having a hard time keeping them fed. It takes the penguins days to make the round trip to the sea and so instead of getting fed about three times a month, chicks may be getting only two feedings. The parents cannot trek back and forth indefinitely, feeding the chicks, as they will be moulting soon and will need to feed themselves up to survive the month-long moult. So it's a race against time to rear the chick or to get it to a large enough size that it can fend for itself. Unlike other penguins, emperor chicks can swim even before moulting into their first adult plumage.

During the visit we see again that penguins are spellbound by tripods. At least once, every photographer using one attracts the scrutiny of penguins, who sometimes just stand and stare at tripod's legs, the camera, the feet in the snow, and sometimes grab it in their beak and bite or shake it inquisitively. This is one of those times when the wise photographer has a backup pocket camera and the lucky photographer has a friend watching with a camera. Penguins, like parrots and other birds, turn their heads to one side to have a better look at something.

The penguin colony is surrounded by gargantuan frozen-in-place icebergs; some are grounded, some are not and will float again when the sea ice melts in January.

We have to leave around 20:00; it's a good 40-minute walk back to the landing site, including stopping for photos of icebergs, wind-shaped snow, and a young Weddell Seal who must be the most photographed mammal in Antarctica by the time we go by; he's been lying near the flagged trail all day. Three half-moulted chicks are now hanging out near the helicopter landing area, a mile from home (a long way for a chick!). Emperor penguin chicks are unique among penguins in that a half-moulted chick can actually swim and survive in the water on its own, if it's big enough; these three probably followed some older penguins toward the water (17 miles away) but got tired after the first mile and stopped. Another younger chick is nearby, a true stray who probably won't survive long. We aren't allowed to put them on the equipment sled and drag them back to the others.

Back at the ship, the engines rev up and it sets out (slowly) even before the last helicopter carrying the emergency equipment and staff returns. An announcement informs us that we are en route to Prydz Bay, and the paper schedule distributed is labeled "Expedition Day" but has no time of arrival given — maybe they've given up on that, because it just causes jokes and disappointment!