On thursday we went with Alastair over to Maiviken to help him weigh 50 penguin chicks and also to see if we could recapture a seal with a GPS tag. We were meant to count the number of penguin chicks however, there was one group that was so large it was impossible so instead Sam took photos so Alastair could count them on a computer screen!

After weighing the chicks we saw one of the seals with the GPS on the island in the middle of the lake so Alastair and I were about to wade out there when Tommy said what you doing that for there she is! Indeed there was another tagged seal about 100 yards from us on the shore. It was the seal that we had lost as her VHF tag had stopped transmitting. So we recaptured her and took off the faulty VHF and GPS and then the two of us waded up to our waist out to the island in the cold water. The second seal saw us and jumped into the water and swam away so we returned to the shore squelching.

We returned to the hut next to the lake and put up one of the new panels before heading home. The walk seemed a lot longer with a few kg of sodden boots and socks to lug up the hills! So quite a long day all in all 🙂