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Yesterday they launched a guessing competition for the time we would see the first iceburg, it appeared at 07:59 this morning. We went to a lecture on seals after breakfast and learnt about what we might see. The elephant seal (so called for the male’s ugly nose) were the most interesting to me. The male can reach up to 4000kg but only 2-3% will mate in their lifetime. They approach the breeding ground and essentially have to defend their part of beach from other males whilst the females arrive. The male will only be ‘beachmaster’ for 3 or so years but in each of those years will have a harem of approximately 100 females. During the season of 2 months he has to starve himself and stay alert to any approaching male threat! The female breeds most years of her life in a delayed pregnancy, so it won’t implant until she has recovered to a suitable condition after weaning her current pup. We saw spouting Sei whales off the bridge this morning but it would be great to get closer to a whale. Penguin Island is a small, ovular shaped island located off the southeastern section of King George Island. Approximately 1.6 km (1 mi) long, the island’s prominent geological feature is the 170m high cone of Deacon Peak, the northern face of which slopes gently down to the landing beach. Low cliffs surround most of the island, and there is a crater lake in the northeast. Chinstrap penguins, southern giant petrels, Antarctic terns, kelp gulls and skuas breed at this site. Southern elephant seals and Weddell seals are known to regularly haul out. About lunch time we anchor off the shore of Penguin Island, the weather is clearing and excitement is building as we can see the hundreds of penguins in the colony perched on the rocks. We are one of the first groups to get to shore and start exploring, I wasn’t really prepared for the aggressive fur seals that we kept a wide berth from or the hundreds and thousands of Chinstrap penguins. The adults are moulting a new coat which takes a lot of their energy and was really fascinating to see them in different phases. I also loved the huge elephant seals just lying, snoring on the beach. Time flew by and after an hour or so we switched into the zodiacs and cruised around the bay looking at the glacier and birds including the Southern Great Petrels and Antarctic Cormorant. We had fabulous weather and it was lovely seeing so many thrilled people back at the ship, buzzing about their experience, including Casper who had watched a penguin get eaten by a Fur seal !!!