Little Chinstrap penguins swimming past an iceberg.
Chinstrap Swim
Elephant Island, Antarctica - 04 Jan 2026 See on Google Maps
My last stop in Antarctica was Elephant Island taking a zodiac ride at Point Wild. There were thousands of Chinstrap penguins in the rocks and in the water. By now we had seen the little birds swimming several times and had tried to catch them as they porpoised in and out of the sea. With the number of penguins in the water this would be a great place to try our luck. We would get low in the zodiac with the cameras just over the edge and then at very high speeds attempt to catch a group swimming.
There were hundreds of pictures to delete - this one had a nice iceberg in the background. High shutter speed to freeze the penguins due to the zodiac bouncing around. I was using a higher than normal aperture to increase chances of focus on the moving line of penguins. These birds were pretty close as the focal length was only 186mm.
Cal Holman Posted on 23 Oct 2026