St Matthew

St Mathew and Hall Island
Well, it was rise and shine, sooooooo early this morning, 5am. I looked out of the window and thought, “how horrible it is outside, I can’t see a thing”. I’ve been spoiled by the amount of daylight that we get here, so I had assumed that the sun was already over the horizon and that the din and fog was due to a storm out there. Not the case! The sun was rising at 6:30am this morning instead of 2:45am, and we were going to climb a cliff to enjoy the view. We got onto the island and made short work of it, in time for a beautiful sunrise, and a few sightings of the very rare McKay’s Bunting, a bird which only exists on that island. The basically look like super white little balls of fluff, and are about the same size, so you had to hurry to get a glimpse before they skittered off.
Then back to the ship for a short move to visit Hall Island, a birders Paradise. If you’re into birds you would be over the moon at visiting this place. The birds of this region quickly figured out, that living here was perfect, you had tons of fish from the sea, and no predators. I saw literally thousands of birds on the cliffs as we toured around the side of the island inside the zodiac boats. Puffin, and tufted puffins, which look like penguins but are interestingly enough not related to them. They have both evolved the same way, to become similar birds, on opposite ends of the globe. Except the puffin can fly, quite clumsily. They look like bumblebees flapping their stubby little wings so hard, trying to escape gravity.
We were also lucky enough to get Cheli out excursion director as our zodiac driver for this foray into nature. She is an amazing New Zealander from Queenstown, tough as nails and very, very funny. The cliffs were spectacular, and covered every inch with birds. Parts of the island jetted out into the ocean to connect with thin, very tall rock faces, and a series of caves and archway. Cheli got us right up next to a few puffins, and she also had no qualms gunning the engine and taking us through narrow openings in the rocks next to the cliff in order to see birds, nesting in little cracks and ledges in the rocks. It was natures amusement park, and no disney ride could ever compare to this experience.