Thanks for the Memories: Preparing to Go to See the Penguins

While Bill, Terrie and Stephanie (David's Staff Reserach Associate from California) were here we decided to go to the Islas Damas National Penguin Reserve. The reserve is about two hours north of La Serena and is known as the northernmost point in the southern hemisphere where penguins can be found.

Getting to the island requires a 30-minute boat ride. When we got to the port Dave went to work to talk to the local fishermen to haggle a price for the tour. We felt fortunate to find a fisherman with a boat for 12 people that gave us exclusive use of his boat for as long as we wanted to for about $15 per person.

While we were waiting for him to prepare the boat we spent some time walking around to explore the coastline and tide pools. Above is a starfish that was really common among the rocks up out of the water. Below is a really fun, orange sea anemone.

It was interesting to see how far the starfish were up out of the water. They must be looking for something to eat.

We were fortunate to visit the area at a time outside of the normal tourist season. For that reason the beaches were covered with shells that hadn't been picked over. We collected a bunch to bring back home and use as ornaments on our new christmas tree.

BJ had fun on the rocks finding little crabs. They were so tiny and cute.

Upon closer inspection you could tell that each crab was just the left over exoskeleton of a baby crab that had molted. BJ though they were lots of fun.

Dave had fun turning over rocks in the tide pools to see what he could find. Below is a common local crab. The carapace on this one is probably about four inches accross. Dave tried to pull him out by getting him to grab a stick with his pinchers and then grabbing him by his carapace. However he was wedged in too tightly.