The temperature is balmy during the day but has dropped at night – no longer just a sheet to cover me, need a couple of blankets!

45 mins by boat through the Straits of Magellan, and we arrive at Magdalena Island (Los Pinguinos National Park)…..one of the isles that was used by navigators and explorers such as Francis Drake, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Ferdinand Magellan and Charles Darwin, and aarrhh! pirates, to get their bearings. 

The lighthouse established in 1903 was a boon to local fisherman, who would come to the island to hunt penguins and use them as bait to catch crab! Poor pengies! 

The Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is named in honour of the maritime explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who first recorded it during an expedition in 1519. 

It is definitely a delightful penguin-centric experience on the island, with approx 150,000 pengies in the community that you walk around and occasionally, they cross your path to get to the sea. We made sure we didn’t disrupt the flow of their hectic lives, which move according to a well-established order and structure apparently…lining their burrows with seaweed or grass tufts; seeking food for their chicks; going for a swim; braying (similar to donkey noise) to signal a territorial dispute or seeking a mate. 

From Nov to April, the penguins breed and moult their feathers in preparation for returning to the sea. The newly-fledged juvenile chicks and adults then spend May to August following the northward movements to warmer climes (Peru and South Brazil), of anchovies – their preferred prey.
They will also eat other fish, squid and crustaceans.