As we approach the beach - pretty much any beach in South Georgia - on the first Zodiac of the day, we float around for a while just a few metres from the shore, surrounded by fur seal pups frolicking, bounding, leaping, twisting, gliding, occasionally turning towards us to take in the strange black pontoons of our Zodiac reflected in their moony eyes.
Then the king penguins emerge, heads appearing for all the world like tiny periscopes, the telltale golden stroke of their necks followed by feathered tails swishing back and forth in the water, their backs glistening . . . eventually we find a place to poke our nose onto the beach, gently displacing as few seals and penguins as possible.