{"id":2274,"date":"2015-04-18T19:16:13","date_gmt":"2015-04-18T07:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/?p=2274"},"modified":"2015-04-18T19:16:13","modified_gmt":"2015-04-18T07:16:13","slug":"hannah-point-livingston-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/2274","title":{"rendered":"Hannah Point, Livingston Island."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Part<\/a>
Part of the Chinstrap Penguin rookery, Hannah Point. National Geographic Explorer and a zodiac in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our first landfall after crossing the Drake Passage was the South Shetland archipelago and our first landing of the\u00a0trip was at Hannah Point on Livingston Island<\/a>. After a briefing on wet landings via Zodiac we had our first opportunity to gear up and learn the process of boarding via the mud room for the landings that would be a regular part of our subsequent\u00a0days. The operation was very slick with the hardest part being waiting in all your layers in the relative warmth of the ship before boarding the Zodiac. Once on board and heading for land the cool air soon had temperatures back down with a fresh breeze in your face. We had light rain for the landing but this went unnoticed with the sensory overload of a penguin rookery comprising Gentoo and Chinstraps with a bonus of a few Macaroni Penguins. There were also some Southern Elephant Seals but not in a place that offered good photo opportunities. The olfactory stimulus of copious guano and the auditory barrage of thousands of penguins make an impression but, as a photographer, \u00a0being most sensitive to visual stimuli, the overwhelming opportunities to observe and trying to isolate interesting scenes against decent backgrounds soon had the other distractions\u00a0receding into the background. The following short video from the FujiX100s gives an impression of part of the Chinstrap colony. Unfortunately wind noise drowns out some of the bird noise. Fortunately it doesn’t convey the aroma of guano that permeates your clothes and followed us back to our cabin!<\/p>\n