National Geographic: Antarctic Wildlife Adventure Page #2

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just sitting right.

You remember the chinstraps at

Deception-

all mucky, all smelly

in all directions?

These are all nice and neat...

I think these are probably the

prettiest of the birds.

By now Sally and Jerome

have witnessed this cycle of

penguin life many times

and still Antarctica fascinates them.

The first time we come...

just well, put the foot ashore.

That was an achievement

for us at least.

And we are very pleased with that.

We've been a bit scared

we've been fighting

to reach Antarctica... and after

we come back a bit more confident

and you go a bit further.

And that's what we've done

just going farther and farther

each time, knowing a bit more.

And when you start to know a place

you-why,

it starts to belong to you or

you belong to this place.

And that's what's happened to us.

Often while Sally is counting penguins

the children explore for themselves.

At the shore here, they've spotted a

leopard seal coming close.

Penguins that survive to adulthood

may live for 20 years.

They're safe on land

with practically no predators.

But in sea

there is danger from seals

especially the leopard seal.

Diti is the youngest of the boys.

Live, the middle boy, finds that

this summer,

geology has captured his attention.

Dion is the oldest

a budding artist

with an interest

in mechanical things also.

Some of this Antarctic exploration

that the boys share

can look dangerous to an outsider.

But plainly, Sally and Jerome see

great benefits in bringing

the children with them.

At home in the Falklands

a traveling schoolmaster

visits for a couple of weeks every

other month or so

with lessons from Sally in between.

On board the Damien II,

the boys learn about earth science

by splashing where boiling volcanic

waters mix with the near frozen sea.

The boys bang away at rock

looking for gold

or fools gold even

and making plans to get rich and buy

firecrackers back at home.

You can just see the difference

that it's made to them.

And coming down here for three months

you can see how many people that

meet and what they're introduced

to and what they're capable

of learning

there are other ways of getting the

same education or the same facts

but this is a very good way of

getting it, you see.

At Foyn Harbor on the peninsula

the boys explore a site leftover

from one of the first significant

human impacts on the Antarctic.

It's an old whaler's anchorage

where boats once filled casks with

glacier water.

The whalers are long gone

a whaling ship lies abandoned

where it ran aground.

In the hold of the wreck

the boys find dozens of the

cone-shaped tips for harpoons

that once took tens of thousands

of whales in a season

until some species were threatened

with extinction.

At last, international protest put a

stop to commercial whaling,

and there are signs that

the animals may be recovering in

the southern oceans.

Three humpbacks approach the ship.

Their size and curiosity must have

made them easy targets for the whalers

But whale hunting was only

among the first human endeavors

to mark the Antarctic.

Near Palmer Station

an American research site,

Dion joins a party of skin divers

from the base

who are going to see what remains

of one of the biggest environmental

threats the continent has seen.

Actually, we're... the wreck today to

look for oil spills

or oil leaks they've plugged up with

wooden... and splash... last year.

The divers are protected as much as

possible by their dry suits

but the water is frigidly cold:

Early last year, an Argentine supply

ship that doubled as a

tourist boat ran aground.

Passengers used home video cameras

to take these pictures.

Within hours they were rescued

but four days later

the ship had turned on its side.

The ship's cargo of diesel oil

began to spill.

A Chilean navy ship arrived quickly

to contain the damage,

but it was a month before Argentine

and American crews managed

to seal the wreck.

It had about 250,000 gallons on board.

And they're estimating that

about half of that

It might have been worse if the ship

had carried heavy,

black crude oil instead of diesel fuel

but still scientists worry that

their research will be affected

because the once pristine area

is no longer so pure.

The wreck has gone through a

single Antarctic winter,

but the damage has been very severe.

It's kind of like a beer can

has been totally crushed.

And there use to be two

little copters there.

There's no sign of them at all now,

other than two tires,

and the highly deck is mostly crushed.

And there's no visible signs of

oil leaking out anymore.

Any cleanup operation would be

difficult here.

Indeed, all along the peninsula

it's clear that very often

no one bothers to clean the mess

that is left behind.

The penguins hardly seem to notice

but nevertheless

many environmentalists are concerned

that we may spoil the last really

large wilderness left on earth;

before we begin to understand it.

The Damien II has been at sea for

about a month,

with dozens of stops so far

for penguin surveys.

Now Jerome has set course for

Dream Island,

about half way down the peninsula.

The island has a large colony of the

third species of penguins

the Poncets are counting:

Adelies.

There are remarkable elephant seal

colonies here also,

and for the seals, too

the Antarctic summer is the

season of the young.

Well, it's a bit slippery in all

this muck-especially

where the penguins have been.

I don't want you to fall in that.

They've been fed by their mothers

until they're sort of round

and their mother's go off and

leave them and they have to survive

during the feeding time...

And they lie around on the

beaches in groups.

And they're really sweet...

They're very beautiful to look at

at that stage.

As they get a bit older

they're not so nice.

It doesn't look as if they're

any more chinstraps in this area.

They seem to be confined to that

area back there.

So I think I'll go back...

In the water by the beach

young male seals play at combat.

They are too young now to really

harm one another.

Later, when they develop the droopy

noses that account for the

elephant seals' name,

they will fight seriously for

groups of females.

All along the coast, the Poncets

find sites of earlier explorers,

many of them no longer in use.

This cabin was once a

research station,

but it's been deserted for a long time

Inside, there are copies of letters

and dispatches that are decades old.

...shall be returning home about

June and anticipate finding

civilization somewhat bewildering.

So would like to be considered for

service as relief warden

at a small hostile in the highlands.

It's the kind of thing, now over

and it really is the kind of thing

now you can say,

it's part of the history of this place

And it should, really should be

preserved and looked after

to keep it like this.

And all this food!

You'll never get food

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