This morning the expedition team announced and posted their first naughty list. The night before, they had been round the lockers in the mud room checking everybody’s muck boots. If they were not clean enough, you were put on the naughty list. Anyone on this wall of shame needed to go down to the mud room and scrub their boots before breakfast. Fortunately, Diane and I escaped the dawn punishment and we could have a peaceful breakfast.
Enderby Island is the most northerly of the Auckland archipelago. The island’s northernmost point is Derry Castle Reef, named after the ship which foundered there in 1887. The sole passenger and 7 of the 23 crew made it ashore at Sandy Bay. They found a castaway depot but it had been looted. After 92 days they discovered an axe head in the sand and were able to build a boat from the wreckage. With this they could reach a second depot at Port Ross. Here they survived for a couple more months before finally getting rescued.
They may have dined, at least some of the time, on rabbit. The animals had been introduced to the island 20 years earlier specifically for this purpose. It was a common practise. Elsewhere, pigs, sheep and even cattle had been left on islands for the benefit of shipwrecked sailor. The Enderby rabbits were there for 130 years by which time they could be classified as a distinct species. The rabbits were eradicated from the island in the early 1990s. A few were rescued and the breed still survives in captivity.
We also went ashore at Sandy Bay. There are a few researchers huts here and also quite a lot of sea lions. The males can be a little territorial and not so welcoming to tourists. We didn’t have any trouble but there was an interesting stand-off with one of the expedition team when another group came ashore. Elsewhere there were groups of female sea lions lying around. Also, young pups playing with each other. Like most pups, these can be quite fun to watch.
We tip-toed round the various groups of sea lions and then could follow a walkway up the hillside a short way. This gave us a nice view and also took us past a few nesting albatrosses. These were Royal Albatrosses. Big birds with a wingspan of over 3 m.
Coming back down, we needed to circumvent another large sea lion male which had set up on the path. “Don’t stop, don’t take photographs and avoid eye contact” we were instructed. Some of the expedition crew get quite domineering and like to order the rest of us around like we were school children. Occasionally this is irritating but mostly I find it faintly amusing. I ended up reflecting on the notion that for well over 200 years it had been perfectly acceptable to club to death anything that looked like a seal. Now, we were being told to not even look at them. Behavioural pendulums swinging between extremes.
Back on the beach we spotted a yellow eyed penguin. These are endangered and quite rare. I took a photograph. It is not a very good photograph but I do at least have a picture of a yellow-eyed penguin.
lol xxx