Magdalena Island, a small island located in Chile in the Strait of Magellan, is one of the largest nesting sites for Magellanic penguins in Chile and home to around 60’000 nesting pairs of penguins.
We woke up to 40 mph winds in Punta Arenas. After a bus ride followed by a pretty rocky boat ride, we landed on the island 90 min later. The sight of penguins delighted all of us right away. These Magellanic penguins are small at around 25″ tall, and so are incredibly cute, especially as you watch them clumsily waddle past you.
We spent about an hour on Magdalena Island. The boat then departed to nearby Isla Marta, where it hovered a few hundred feet from the coast , just close enough for us to see the colony of 1,000 South American sea lions. Called the lobo marino by local Chileans, the male Patagonian sea lion can grow up to nine feet and weigh over 700 pounds.
