That's why we were in Puerto Deseado, to see the Rock Hopperpenguins and their punk style hair-do's and yellow eye brows. And today was the day.

We gathered at the office of Darwin Expeditions and along with 15 or so other assorted tourists climbed into their large zodiac style boat for the rough 1 hour journey to Isla Pinguino. Along the way we got some views of sea lions resting on a small rock island.

The landing at Penguin Island was a bit of an adventure, no wharf or jetty, simply jump off the front of the boat the next time the waves take it close to the rocks; that's basically what the instructions said.

We spent from about 10:00 until 3:30 on the island, walking around looking at Magellanic Penguins of which there were many, then a large colony of rock hoppers, and finally a good sized colony of sea lions - many of them large males with big fur mains around their necks.

It was a good day, the guide Danny was informative and remembered that we did not speak Spanish or Italian (the nationality of most of the tourists), and the weather cooperated. The only element to wonder about was that there were no toilet facilities on the island; that seemed to us like a significant oversight given the numbers of tourists and the length of the stay.