We were almost unable to visit Jenny Island due to the sheer number of Fur Seals present. However, even at a distance, from the boat's deck, we could see them, scattered like black dots across the beaches. They almost looked like ants on a trail.

Experience

Our impressive Expedition Crew managed to find a safe landing spot, even though none of the Staff had ever been to Jenny Island. When the initial exploration zodiacs went out, they found thousands of Fur and Elephant Seals dominating the beaches.

We divided into two groups with limited landing opportunities, each with an hour out of the boat because of the limited landing opportunities. The initial ten minutes were onshore, spending time with the Elephant seals and then fifty minutes on a Zodiac exploration.

The Elephant Seals lay together in a vast warm pile. Their skin and fur off in patches as the moulting season drew to a close. Occasionally, a seal would look up and yawn, opening a vast mount full of massive teeth. Moulting season is the only time they are social; otherwise, they keep to themselves. Moulting time is also mating time and the time they give birth. With a nine-month gestation period, female Elephant Seals achieve these three activities by storing the male sperm for three months after copulation, only fertilizing after three months. When the moulting and mating season arrives, they are ready to give birth.

Due to the timing and location, we did not encounter one of the fearsome Beachmasters, massive Seals, more than twice the size of the Elephant Seals we encountered. A lucky male will get one or two seasons as a Beachmaster with a harem of females to breed with before they are injured or otherwise unable to maintain a claim to the beach.

The seals we encountered were young males, only half the size of a grown adult but still two or three times larger than the largest human on the beach. The young males spend the season together, moulting and otherwise performing all bodily necessities in the same somewhat putrid pile.

Further down the beach, we saw one adolescent slide down the beach and into the water, leaving a yellowish trail of grime along the sand and into the water. The effluence was so strong that the waves took on a deep brown colour before the seal swam away.

Around the Elephant Seals, fur seals play fighting with each other on rocks and the beach. Far more graceful on land than the Crabeaters and certainly more so than the Elephant Seals, the fur seals numbers were a genuinely hopeful sign of recovery from the decimation they suffered in the 19th and 20th century from the sealer vessels.

At the edge of the water, our first encounter with Weddell Seals, two of them asleep on the rocks. Similar enough, at a glance, we would have mistaken them for Crabeater had our pilots not corrected us; the more feline face is the leading indicator of their species.

Back in the zodiac, we headed along the coastline, passing seals after seals after seals. Lacking any fear of us, the fur seals spent their time playing and spinning in the water in front of us and the Elephant Seal.

Fur Seals seem to have more sense of the drama than the other seals we've encountered and pose more on high rocks against impressive scenery rather than sleeping on ice, though this may be because of their more upright anatomy.

Identifiable thanks to the towering black mountain, Jenny island has a series of tiered beaches of stones ringing the peak due to glacial pressures. High above the waterline, to the knowing eyes of our pilots, we were shown iron and copper deposits, currently safe from mining thanks to the Antarctic protection treaties, put at risk in 2040 if nothing further is done to extend them.

A flock of Cormanants with bright yellow beaks spent some time swimming next to us. Occasionally they would duck their long heads underwater to look at our boat and try and understand what they were seeing.

Our final stop on the zodiac cruise was outside of a magnificent iceberg, a massive chunk of ice towering above us and extending far below. In front of us, multiple arches lead to a mysterious interior, but the danger is both significant and ever-present. At any time, carving can happen and ice larger than our zodiac can fall from the archway into the waiting water.

Wildlife

Weddell Seals

Fur Seals

Elephant Seal

Antarctic Shag

Location

In Marguerite Bay, Jenny Island was discovered by the French Antarctic Expedition (1908-1910) under Jean-Baptiste Charcot. Unlike the nearby Pourquoi Pas Island, Charcot gave Jenny Island its name. Charcot had climbed to the top of the islands ice cliffs to understand that the outlying Adelaide Island was indeed an island.

67° 42’ 95 S 68° 23’ 18 W

Jenny Island