I posted this image on Flickr on April 12, 2013.

At the time of writing, it has accumulated 5,356 views, 249 favourites and 53 comments, which is so far above my average rating it’s ridiculous.  I’ve been on Flickr since October 2006 and my 680 posted images have between them collected 27,263 views.  So either this is an absolute world class masterpiece, and everything else I’ve ever posted is, well, not, or it is an indication of just how unreliable social media popularity is at evaluating how good your photography is.

Now, this photo has been “selected for Explore”, the meaning of which I’m ashamed to say I don’t quite fully understand.  I’m not quite sure what Explore is, but apparently 27 of my photos have been in it - so, a hit rate of 1 in 25, which may or may not be good. But anyway, it does seem to raise visibility and sometimes popularity. Having said that, so does posting a photo from my Sigma DP2 Merrill, whatever the subject.

Perhaps it’s penguins, but then again I’ve post other penguin shots.

Anyway, at least it means that the few generous souls who regularly comment on my photos, probably to cheer me up, can take a few days off.  On the downside, I feel morally obliged to respond to all the people who’ve be kind enough to comment, write or “fave”, and so far that’s taken over 2 hours. Still, I’ve discovered some pretty good photos on the way.  Check out my own favourites to see a few of them.

I guess it will all calm down again soon enough.  It’s nice to feel popular, but I don’t think I could keep up that level of interaction for long.  I’m far too much of a miserable old git for that.

Well, we survived a relatively bumpy ride back across the Drake Passage into Ushuaia. The fact that we survived shows that it was not all that bad. Antarctica was damp. Foggy, low cloud, persistent rain, temperatures well above zero most of the time. The rain was the biggest shock. When I was working as a field scientist 20 years ago, people going south of the South Georgia / South Orkneys “banana belt” were not even issued with wet weather gear. Nowadays you need gore-tex underwear. But otherwise it hasn’t changed much. Not one moment of clear sky in 12 days, and perhaps 2 hours of hazy sun at most, in total. At least we didn’t get sunburnt.  Much more to come, but first, of course, some penguins. Take it away, guys.

In a few hours we will board the Akademik Sergey Vavilov to start a 12 day cruise around the Antarctic Peninsula, hopefully as far south as Marguerite Bay. Back in my day it was full of ice, but I guess it’s warmed up a bit.

In the meantime, here are a few non-Antarctic penguins from the Valdes Peninsula, Punto Tomba, and Tiera del Fuego. It almost seems worth carrying this ridiculous amount of gear around with me, although I’m still fully intending a complete rethink when we get home. Small is beautiful.