Roly-poly divers

A small diving team of Adélie penguins is but a tiny fraction of Paulet Island's penguin population. This mass of land and ice off the Antarctic Peninsula is home to hundreds of thousands of the charming, curious creatures. Though small in stature (about 30 inches tall), Adélies are nonetheless known for their fearlessness. Visitors from early Antarctic explorers to modern cruise passengers have been delighted as flocks of the plucky penguins rush to greet them up close. During the fraught Scott expedition, the English chronicler Apsley Cherry-Garrard became an Adélie admirer, later writing fondly of the bird as 'an almost human friend.'