20 Dec 2022

Sliding along the Subantactic Snares

Good morning, Snares!

Today proved to be an action filled day as Heritage Adventurer made anchorage at Mollymawk Bay on the lower east coast of North East Island.

We kicked off the morning with a spectacular Zodiac cruise around the island where we explored some magnificent caverns while hearing our voices echo and boom into the dark and put into practice some of our learnings from Tom's geology lecture.

Keen-eyed guests spotted Snares Tomtits and even a Snares Fernbird darting down to the intertidal zone as we watched large rafts of Snares Crested-Penguins launching out of the water and onto the rocks. 

The Penguin Slide was an incredible highlight, and we watched in amazement as crowds of penguins returning from feeding out in the sea and clamber hundreds of metres to their nests underneath the flowering Hebe elliptica and silvery Olearia.

A Leopard Seal was also spotted in the water along with the odd Fiordland Crested-Penguin (Tawaki) among the mix of penguins and flocks of Cape Petrels had close flybys of the Zodiacs as we returned to Heritage Adventurer, hauled anchor and set sail for Australia.

Just before the day was over we enjoyed a great workshop led by our Andy on tips for bird watching and identification, raising everyone's excitement to be outside searching for birds where, to our surprise, we observed a pod of up to 30  Fin Whales as we passed the western chain.

Macquarie Island here we come!