By Louie Escober
There are a couple of penguin colonies outside of Punta Arenas, Seno Otway and Isla Magdalena. These colonies are nesting sites for Magellanic penguins, where they establish burrows. The nesting pairs divide up their duties - one heads out to fish while the other stays home. They have two shifts a day, one leaving in the morning at around 10 am, and the other at around 5 pm. The penguins are around from September to late March, but they're best viewed from November to February.
Seno Otway is the smaller of the two colony and hosts about 3,000 penguins, and it's reached by road about an hour outside of Punta Arenas. Volunteers have set up roped walkways and lookout posts, including a blind on the beach where you can watch the penguins come out of the ocean. There's a small snack shop, toilets, and gift stands. I arranged a tour in the Comapa office off of the main plaza in Punta Arenas. They set me up with Viento Sur, but there are a number of tour companies that can take you out. Your lodgings should be able to set you up. Most tours leave in the afternoon, around 4:00 pm. I also saw a number of people drive up there in private cars. Given that most of the tours arrive in the evening, you should be able to avoid many of the crowds by showing up in the morning.
I'm not sure about the other tours, but we were restricted to a one hour visit. There's a loop trail that's about a mile long, and the penguins are quite close in spots. As it's in the evening, one could hope for good light, but as it was, I had overcast weather.
Isla Magdalena is much larger than Seno Otway, with an estimated 150,000 penguins sharing nesting space with cormorants. These penguins are more timid than those at Seno Otway, but the sight of so many of these birds bustling to and fro is decidedly more impressive. Isla Magadalena is only reacheable via a ferry, which ends up being a half-day trip. Turismo Comapa runs this ferry, though I imagine you can book it through your lodgings.. Its boat leaves from the pier at 3:30pm and returns at 8:30pm on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from December to February. The tour costs $30US, and it takes about two hours to reach the Island. Like with Seno Otway, you're limited to a one hour visit. The boat departs from Tres Puentes, and is reachable via the Taxi Collectivo's #15, or you could simply take a taxi. I found a guy with a mini-bus taking people over for $500 pesos, so I went with him.
The boat ride out is fairly pleasant - there are TVs, chairs, bathrooms, and a small snack stand. You can hang out outside, and watch the coastline go by. I didn't see much of photographic interest, aside from a few old boats.
The boat drops everybody off on one side of the island, and you follow a trail up and over the island to the other side where the boat picks you up. At the top of the Island is a lighthouse where you can climb to the top for an expansive view. I found Isla Magdalena to be excellent - much better than Seno Otway. I also had the advantage of much better light than I had the previous evening. I was shooting almost immediately upon disembarking from the boat. You are able to approach the penguins very closely, though one should be careful not to stress them too much. We arrived just in time as the penguins were emerging from the ocean and making their way to the burrows. The trail follows the shoreline for a bit, so the penguins have to cross the trail in order to reach their nests. I was shooting with a 70-200mm/f4 on my 10D, which gave me an equivalent focal length of 120-320. This was just about perfect. The penguins were close enough that I could easily get full frame shots. The biggest problem I had was isolating specific penguins, as there were so many of them that they crowded my compositions. I had expected to have to shoot quickly, so I was using a monopod rather than my tripod (well, it was actually my trekking pole with my ballhead mounted on top.) I think if I were to return, I would go ahead and use the tripod. One of the great opportunities of this shooting location is the ability to get down low to the ground and shoot eye to eye with the penguins. They're pretty strict about the time constraint, and I found myself being rushed along as one of the tour guides urged stragglers onwards. I found the opportunities better on the side of the island where we were dropped off to be better than on the other side, so I did not regret straggling a bit.
The lighthouse has some displays about the penguins, but I really didn't have time to bother. After departing the island, one could see large groups of penguins swimming in the ocean near the island, both heading in and heading out. The light was getting really good at this point, but I didn't find much to shoot on the ride back. Upon return, I found the guy with the mini-bus waiting to pick up fares for the trip back, and hopped on.
