In Doumer Bay this morning we came across skuas sweepingly protective of young which, in harsher times, they cannibalize. Gentoo penguin parents run in a frantic attempt to escape their wing-flapping chicks, only to find a safer place to feed them.
The same secret lives exist on the ship. A bath-robed stargazer turns out to be a renowned astro-physicist. The woman staring at the radar is a retired Hollywood actress. This quiet naturalist, an Arctic hunter. That stewardess, a PHD sociologist. The station researcher in the cowboy hat tends not to a herd of bucking broncos but instead a flotilla of rubber Zodiacs.
Every week a Zodiac is gnawed. No one really knows why. In fact nothing about these animals is obvious. Lying on the doorstep of Palmer Station, a wallow of elephant seal males snort, fart, cough and sneeze their way through a typical mid-summer slumber. They appear slow moving, sluggishly bad-tempered, and earth bound by excess body weight. But I have learned from the aforementioned quiet Arctic hunting naturalist that elephant seals have perhaps the most stunning secret lives of all.
Adult bulls spend most of their lives at sea, and while there, 94% of their time is spent underwater. They are the most accomplished divers, descending to over 1,500 metres with 45 minutes between breaths. They are the fastest of all seals, speeding over 20 knots in the pursuit of squid. And they are some of the heaviest, with adult bulls reaching 4 tons, engaging in fierce territory fights that literally rock the earth around them.
As I stood there and watched the three Palmer Station seals, one adolescent male rolled his eyes in my direction, sighed, and stared towards our ship.
He made me wonder who I'll meet in the dining room tonight.
