The last penguin

If you’re hoping to see all the world’s 18 penguin species there is good and bad news. The good news is that the extraordinary voyages required will take you from the glittering Galapagos to the epic shores of Patagonia, from the rough-hewn coast of South Africa to sunny cities in Australia. You must also, of course, go to Antarctica – probably more than once.

The bad news is that to complete the list, you will also need to visit Tristan Da Cunha. This is not to say there is something inherently dreadful about this extremely distant British Overseas Territory but rather speaks to the conundrum of just how to get there. Located close to the exact centre of the South Atlantic, it lies halfway between Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and Cape Town, South Africa. It has no airstrip, and though its resupply vessels offer limited berths for their often brutal six-day sailings from Cape Town, they are usually taken by islanders coming and going from their community, which is the most remote on Earth.

A handful of committed maniacs also sail to the archipelago each year, braving the enormous unpredictability of the open ocean for weeks at a time. For normal people, the final and most comfortable option is to visit on a cruise ship. Even if you indulge in this comparative luxury, there is a 40-50 percent chance your vessel will not be able to operate in the rough swell that commonly wraps itself around the islands.

Sitting in port in Ushuaia, Argentina, I knew of all these risks, and yet, as someone doomed to try and see (and photograph) every penguin species, I also knew I had no other option. So remote is Tristan Da Cunha, that my only realistic hope was on an Antarctic expedition cruise ship coming to the end of its southern season. 

At the close of the 2023/24 season, a handful of vessels planned to travel via the far-flung archipelago as they made their way to the west coast of Africa, then north, all the way to the Arctic to begin months of expeditions at the opposite end of the Earth. Unfortunately, just as this transition is happening, the northern rockhoppers are preparing to go to sea, where they spend many weeks foraging without returning to land, beyond the lens of mankind. Many cruise operators weren’t planning to visit until after the penguins had gone.

In short, as I boarded the expedition ship Vega, I knew I was taking a gamble. The itinerary would take three weeks to get from Argentina to South Africa, but I had only allocated a couple of days for Tristan Da Cunha. The initial plan focused on a day at the seabird mecca of Gough Island and then a day at the settlement on the main island of Tristan, but bad weather or bad luck could easily scupper these plans, and so with them, my chances of seeing the northern rockhoppers.

As the Antarctic season was ending, Ushuaia’s port was uncommonly quiet, with much of the armada having already migrated north for warmer waters. In this regard, the ships were like many of the animals they hoped to see – we were the final stragglers before autumn began to shift to winter.

Part of the reason the Vega’s journey from Ushuaia took so long owed to a happy detour to Antarctica and South Georgia before sailing east across the Atlantic. Despite travelling at what can be a tumultuous time of year, we headed out into the Drake Passage and found tranquil conditions.

In open water, the huge, flat sky was only punctuated by wandering albatross, which followed us for days. Swooping left and right, occasionally, thrillingly, they also flew right overhead. The unending calm suited us, but not them. The albatross never looked rushed or hurried, but it felt strange to watch them forced to flap – inappropriate, somehow, like seeing a schoolteacher wearing jeans.

We had a couple of days on the Antarctic Peninsula, colossal and dramatic as always, but by March, penguin rookeries were spectacularly covered in guano and blooming algae. At a couple of sites, the snow resembled a Jackson Pollock painting as much as it did a pristine polar world. Still, the penguins clung on, especially the juveniles which looked as though they were convincing themselves that life in the water would be a good idea. At sites on the east and west of the mighty peninsula, we saw all three species of brushtail penguins: Adelies, chinstraps, and gentoos, all wonderful in their own ways but already long ticked off my list.

From there, we sailed northeast to South Georgia. Again the ocean was as calm as a dozing puppy. The Vega is a relatively new ship, and I had been keen to see how it would handle a big sea. However, instead of mountainous waves, we found only benign stretches of flat water.

Taken as a whole, South Georgia is my favourite place on the planet, a miracle of a destination blessed with a singular combination of scenery, wildlife, and history. It is also one of the world’s great penguin hubs, with four species nesting around the island. Of these, the king penguins and macaronis are found in huge numbers, with over a million of each resident here.

We spent a couple of days sailing around the northern shores, including our mandatory visit to the old whaling station at Grytviken. Now home to South Georgia Government inspectors, this strange half-town is a compulsory stop so ships may have their biosecurity measures checked before they can disembark passengers.

In 2023/24, this was more complex than usual as highly pathogenic Avian Influenza had ripped through South Georgia at the beginning of the season. Almost miraculously, penguins showed incredible resistance, even as skuas, giant petrels, and Antarctic terns fell around them. Much more conspicuous had been the death of fur and elephant seals, which died en masse at the beginning of the season and spent most of the austral summer decaying on frozen beaches, horrifying visitors and guides alike.

By March, the situation had mercifully improved, meaning that by the time we got to St Andrews Bay on a gloriously sunny morning, South Georgia much better resembled the paradise I remembered. The world’s largest king penguin colony shimmered on the vast shore, hundreds of thousands of birds occasionally interspersed by colossal male elephant seals that had avoided the violence of the breeding season and the horrors of avian flu, and now sunbathed happily next to the birds.

In the background, glaciers and mountains stretched to impossible distances while castle-sized pieces of glacial ice floated in the ocean like a fleet of ghost ships. All of this was lovely, dramatic and endlessly photogenic, but it didn’t include a single northern rockhopper, which was why I had travelled in the first place.

Days at sea awaited, as did a particular type of paranoia I’d never before experienced in the southern seas. We had five whole days to reach Tristan, plenty of time to fret about the conditions when we arrived. Like most modern cruise ships, the Vega had wifi; like most modern cruise ships, part of me wished it didn’t. I broke every promise to myself not to check Windy, that most reliable weather app, or CruiseMapper, on which I could ogle the two ships several days ahead of us, heading in the same direction. It was hard not to be envious from my god’s-eye view as I watched them sail smoothly around the archipelago – for us TDC was still very much TBC.

Away from the screens, there was only water – or almost only water. A day out from South Georgia we passed the iceberg unromantically known as D28. Despite floating for five years and having travelled 4,000km from its birth site, this behemoth is one of the world’s largest icebergs. Even after all that time spent degrading, it still appeared as huge as land, resembling something like a frozen fortress or a bombed city. Ice rubble bobbed around in the sea while freezing exhalations flew out from its crumbling cliffs.

As we continued across the South Atlantic, I read more about Tristan. When I told people at home that I was taking three weeks on a ship to hopefully get a day or two there, I had been met with a look that hovered somewhere between pity and confusion. This was almost always followed with the line: “Never heard of it.”

In case that also applies to you, here are some things you should know: despite its very Portuguese name, Tristan Da Cunha is a British Overseas Territory and has been for over 200 years. There are four major islands: far-flung Gough, Nightingale, Inaccessible, and the main island of Tristan, which is an active volcano appearing to float in the sea. There is just one settlement, the excellently named Edinburgh Of The Seven Seas, which has a population of around 250 souls. This is trending down, though nowhere near as low as in the early 1900s when the British government pleaded with the then 80 residents to abandon the islands altogether. They refused.

One thing I didn’t know before getting there: it is also an extraordinarily beautiful place, as wild and epic as you would hope such a decidedly remote outpost to be. Uncertain weather cancelled our plans to go to Gough, which is home to the largest colony of northern rockhoppers in the world. This felt like a bitter blow, especially considering how little time we had to explore the other islands, but then I looked out of my cabin and saw Nightingale.

The smallest of the four main islands that comprise Tristan Da Cunha, Nightingale stands bold, almost confrontational, out of the Atlantic. Its topography is defined by impossible cliffs, rocky spires, and Mordorian fissures in its volcanic rock. In the afternoon, we saw it; its highlands wore a layer of clouds like duvets and rampant tussock grass like an undersheet. The sky, meanwhile, was endlessly perforated by thousands upon thousands of great shearwaters.

The island can only be landed on in the company of a local guide. For the Vega, this meant the best we could hope for was a zodiac cruise around its astonishing coast. However, the same winds that had denied us a visit at Gough were also present here, and it was only when we fell into the island's lee that it became clear we’d be able to try it.

We’d travelled so far, and with forecasts painting an even grimmer picture for the following day, I was keenly aware that this out would likely be my only chance to see the northern rockhoppers. At other outings, I’d been casual, even late to the changing room at the back of the ship; for Nightingale, I was first in line, nervous and gibbering as I loaded into the zodiac.

Having spent so long frowning at forecasts and maps out on the water, the weather decided to go easy on us. The cloud enshrouding the island's centre didn’t want to leave it, allowing the sun to dapple the outskirts. In the distance, both Tristan Da Cunha and Inaccessible Island were visible, and as we pushed north, we approached the lesser Middle Island. It initially seemed unremarkable compared to its huge neighbours, but as we drew closer, dozens of northern rockhopper penguins came into view. In the early afternoon sun, their flamboyant crests glowed like halos as though they knew how rare a prize they were.

Hours later, back on the ship, the expedition team delivered the bad news that we wouldn’t be making it to the main island after all—inclement weather would make landing impossible. Instead, we’d sail directly to Cape Town, another five days of open sea away. To some on board, this was naturally disappointing, but I spent most of the announcement flicking through my photographs of penguins, oblivious and delighted.