Sea Lions and Imperial Comorants at De Los Lobos Island, Tierra del Fuego, ARGENTINA

Sea Lions and Imperial Comorants at De Los Lobos Island, Tierra del Fuego, ARGENTINA

It has been years since I’ve seen a sea lion. In fact, I forgot where was the last time I seen a sea lion. Not sure whether it was in Zoo Negara Malaysia or the Singapore Zoo. By the way those were “captive” sea lions, not the wild ones.

Last year, I had a month long trip to Argentina and I traveled to Ushuaia the southernmost city in the world. There, my friends and I took a boat trip to De Los Lobos Island off the Beagle Channel. The day trip also included De Los Pajaros Island, Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse and Islas Bridges.

It took us almost an hour to reach De Los Lobos Island from Ushuaia port. The journey to island seems to be short as everyone were busying taking pictures of beautiful city of Ushuaia.

The island is tiny and overpopulated by sea lions and imperial comorants. The backdrop of the picture is the city of Ushuaia. On the top right of the picture is the Five Brothers Mountain.

These were wild sea lions and on top were the imperial comorants. There were two known comorants in this part of the world, the grand and imperial comorants.

The sea lions were lazing on the rocks on the island. They were sunbathing.

From the first picture, there were snow on top of the mountains but at that time it was not winter, it was summer-time. Summer days in Ushuaia will have temperature of 10 to 20 degree Celsius on the average days and 20 to 25 degree Celsius on a “hot” day.

Due to the location of the island and how close it is to the South Pole, there were still snows on the colder days during summer. However to the sea lions and the imperial comorants, this was the hottest season they could get for the all year round.

We were on a smaller boat than the usual big cruises. For that, we were able to get closer to the island and we were just tens of meters away from the island.

One thing we noticed were the foul smell when we got near the island. It was not the smell of the sea lions but the smell of the sea weeds. It is not the green sea weeds that we Asians who loved to eat but the brown orangey colour sea weeds. The imperial comorant is one of the few bird species that is spotted around the island.

The imperial comorants were often mistaken as penguins from far due to its distinguished colour of black and white. We enjoyed the sightings of both the sea lions and the imperial comorants.

To join the tour to visit De Los Lobos Island, please visit the Tourist Information Center near the Ushuaia port and there are a number local tour companies available located at the opposite of the Tourist Information Center. Penguin Island Tour can be only booked there. For our trip we chose Patagonia Adventure Explorer.

Patagonia Adventure Explorer Contact:

Tel: 1546842, 1546841

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.PatagoniaAdvent.com.ar

Wilson Ng