The Penguin Graveyard
I walked to the other side of the island in a few minutes, and found a gravel beach where a small squad of penguins stood idly around like short French waiters.
     Scattered around on the beach were whole scores of penguin corpses, the little rib cages bleached white by the sun and cold. I could tell they were penguin bodies because their small velvety flippers had been left intact, even though the bones had been picked clean. I learned later that the penguins had been attacked by a fellow bird called the Antarctic Skua. A massive brown bird like an overgrown seagull, the skua is the only bird that regularly travels to the South Pole — even the penguins don’t dare go so far south.
    

The author explores the cold way, way down south. (Erik Olsen)

I walked down the beach alone for about a mile, but the cold became intolerable. Massive gusts of subzero wind swept down from the mountains and slammed into me like blows. I kept my head down and pressed on up the beach, unsure of what I was going to find. I came upon a herd of enormous elephant seals lying barking and belching like a group of fraternity brothers on Spring Break.
     Black clouds swarmed on the horizon and snow began to fall, so I quickly headed back to the base. Not long after, we were told a storm was coming that would make passage back to the Aquiles impossible, so we’d have to hurry. We’d been on the base for a good part of the day, and I’d hoped we’d be able to stay the night, but the captain of the Aquiles wanted everyone back aboard.

Looking for Life Jackets
We tumbled back into the lifeboats and were about a half a mile out when I realized something was missing.
     “Excuse me, sir?” I said to the sailor who stood in the bow. He was flapping his arms in a gesture that was either an effort to keep warm or some Chilean navigational technique. “Aren’t we supposed to be wearing life jackets?” My lips were frozen, and I wasn’t sure if the Spanish came out correctly.
     “Que?” he said.
     “I said, aren’t there supposed to be life jackets? For passengers?” He shrugged and I searched my memory to be sure that I had used the right words: chaleco salvavidas. Another sailor nearby scoffed, “Why do you need a life jacket? If you fall in this water, you only have about twenty-five seconds to live. We’d never get to you in time.” I saw a faint smile cross his lips as he exchanged glances with his buddy sitting across from him.
     Thankfully, we made it back to the Aquiles safe and sound. We slept soundly that night on board the ship and then spent another few days sailing around the islands, landing at another Chilean base and saying hello to the Russian research tam at Bellingshausen. The next week, we headed back to Cape Horn. It was very cold, but because I had so much travel still ahead of me, I was happy. Happy to have visited, and happy to be leaving this cold, faraway place.