Shirley Island, being an island, requires a little bit of walking over sea-ice. The ‘bridge’ between the island and the main land is only about 100 metres long (but probably 1km wide), and the first time I crossed it I couldn’t even really tell where the ice was meant to start. This time I could though, it wasn’t like looking down into the water through the ice or anything (the ground just looked like you were walking on solid rock covered by snow) but you knew that there was water about 1.5m below the surface. Since things have been warming up a little lately there has been a bit of melting, and as it melts, the snow on the surrounding hills (which has compacted into a mini glacier over winter) slides down towards the water like a slow avalanche, causing the sea-ice to warp and stress a little. This is actually visible in places where ridges in the ice are starting to form, and if youre quiet you can hear it moving and cracking in places.
It was on the thin ‘bridge’ of ice that we started seeing little groups of penguins, and this super fat/super lazy Weddell seal, or was it a leech on Steggles growth hormone…?
This photo was taken from the island, looking back across edge of the sea-ice to the shore of the mainland (background). Aside from being extremely fast swimmers, penguins are also not to bad at jumping. They propel themselves out of the water fast enough to jump up onto the shelf, just prior to a spectacular belly-flop on the ice. 
The penguins seem to like hanging around in little groups of somewhere between 3 and 15 when they aren’t with the rest of the colony. Watch them for long enough and you also soon realise that there are definite personality differences between individuals. Some are very inquisitive, while some are extremely shy; some are leaders, and some are followers. But there is one thing they all have in common, they are all hilarious! While watching the penguins I had an idea for solving the world’s problems, heres my idea: I think if we just abolished knees from the human race, people would be too busy laughing at other people trying to perform every day tasks (such as climbing a staircase) that nobody would be thinking of war or dropping bombs on people. Actually, I might start a political party and push for the abolition of knees… im told all I need to do is spend $30 million of tax-payer’s money on advertising and I might have a chance of winning an election.
Anyway, sinicism aside, after watching a few small parties for some time, and getting some close-ups of the more inquisitive ones, we marched on to the colony. The numbers have grown significantly since my first visit and there are now several thousand penguins in the colony, I estimate. 
One thing they don’t tell you in training is that you must always try to approach a colony from an upwind direction… there isn’t really any top-soil in Antarctica to speak of… but the penguins do a pretty job of making their own, and once you get a good whiff of it… lets just say its not exactly the pristine Antarctic air that you might expect to be breathing in here.
The photo below shows a skewer trying to steal some eggs. They circle about 10 metres above the colony... definitely no ambiguity to their intentions. 
Well, another trip to Shirley Island, and a good time was had by all.
