Facing reality

For about four hours, I have been sitting on high ground over a shallow lagoon at Plano Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Across from my position, there is a large colony of noisy and smelly Gentoo penguins. It occurs just before low tide, when the adult penguins usually return from hunting at sea, and the young ones get to the shallow water to play or clean up. The leopard seal arrived and landed in the heart of the lagoon. On arrival, the predator put its head totally underwater. From my point of view and that of all the other penguins, only its back was visible. Its gray skin looked like all the other rocks. The young penguins were playing freely and happily. When one penguin got close enough, the seal moved in speedy motion, caught one penguin by its leg, and started to move back toward the open sea in undulating movement over the now very shallow lagoon. With fins in hand, camera, and mask-wearing drysuit, I followed the action; I entered the frizzing water (34F) too. At first, I saw the seal holding the penguin by its legs, drowning it. The penguin was emitting air and trying its best to escape, shaking its wing fast and furious; it got free and started swimming for freedom. The leopard seal had nothing to do with it. The leopard seal was in pursuit of the penguin, and I was doing my best to shadow the action; I was swimming as hard as I could for a few minutes till the seal caught the penguin, drown it again till it stop moving, and than this next split moment that I cought them both at the ultimate moment of a predator and its prey.