Beak island
The idea was to get our legs moving, explore Beak Island and combine a love of hiking with a spirit of discovery.
So we set off to explore the small island, whose sheltered bay offered us a good anchorage.
It is home to a number of seals and a few individual penguins, but above all, Beak Island is skua country. The large birds nest here as ground breeders. The young have already left the nest, but are still sitting around and are protected by their parents, who try to keep us away with screeching and attack flights. One or two skua come threateningly close to our heads. We try to keep well clear of the young and protect ourselves by holding up walking sticks.
Our group splits up after a while. Some want to take their time to look around and take photos, Karen and I want to walk to the highest point, Jan joins us.
It takes us just over an hour to climb up the scree of the mountain flank. Here we have a magnificent panoramic view of the island, the inlets and the surrounding mountains.
The summit is only just under 400m high, but the steep ascent, the steep cliff sloping down to the sea and the windswept peak with summit markings give us the feeling of a real summit success. We are happy and of course we take a photo at the summit.
Back on the boat, another highlight of the day: showers 😃!
Everyone took advantage of this wonderful offer and the feeling afterwards, clean and wrapped in fresh underwear, was heavenly. It’s also fascinating that 11 people leave our mini wet room clean in less than an hour. Why do we actually need large baths, hours-long sessions in the bathroom and large quantities of water at home when it’s so easy?