Day 11 - At Sea, Scotia Sea sailing to Elephant Island

Day 11 14th Nov

Diary
Got up to the Bridge early today. After chating to Andrew and Jill i realised how much this trip/experience is changing all of our lives.

There wasn`t much to see, a few wondering albatross. The conversation was so valuable, an insight into the lives of really instersting people, it really was a nice start to the day.

Excellent lecture from Ursula on whales. I made about 7 pages of notes it was so interesting.

In the afternoon we saw lots of blows from whales. Ursula thinks they are fin backs, about 12 of them. The blow goes straight up about 2o meters.

Ursula giving her lecture on whales and whales identification. She runs a research programme called ORES http://www.ores.ch/ .
Ursula hand made all of the whales and they are made to scale. Here you see a mummy and a baby humback.

Wandering albatross

Friday 14th November - At Sea, Scotia Sea sailing to Elephant Island

Time: 12:00

Latitude: 57° 07.9' S

Longitude: 42° 23.5' W

Wind: Force 7 South West

Sea Conditions: Rough (wave height 2.50 – 4m)

Pressure: 1002 mbTemperature: 4ºC

A change of time zones overnight gave us an extra hour in bed this morning, the 07.30 wake upcall seeming uncharacteristically amicable. The sea conditions were favourable and allowed us to breakfast in relative comfort for a sea day in the Southern Ocean. Today gave an opportunity to rest after the busy landing schedule of South Georgia and look back at our time there. The South Georgia weather, renowned as harsh and unpredictable, had given us a few days of near perfect conditions which allowed us to carry out all but one landing. The amount of wildlife on the various beaches we visited was staggering and has given us all life long memories.

At 09:30 Ursula presented her lecture A Glimpse into the World of Whales, which gave an introduction to the great whales of the Southern Ocean. John Sparks followed at 11:00 with his talk on penguins; Can’t Fly, Run Even Worse. After lunch there was a chance to relax and spend sometime on deck watching out for the whales Ursula had prepared us for this morning. Those who puting the hours on deck were treated to views of several groups of fin whales passing the ship as we continued our navigation to the South Shetland Islands.

At 15:00 the BBC film The Race to Breed from the Life in the Freezer series was shown in the observation lounge, during this time Rudi presented his lecture Antarctic Ecosystems in German in the Polar Bar. Just before the start of a rather disrupted recap and briefing, John Harrison identified two Southern White Morph Giant Petrels off the stern of the ship. Although not classed as rare, these birds are not seen often and such a good view of a pair from our moving ship was excellent. Gary gave ashort presentation on the different map projections that form the basis of our world views. It was interesting to learn about the way the Polar Regions are so distorted on the classic Mercator projection that we take for granted. Ursula followed with some information on the fin whales wehad been seeing throughout the day around the ship. As if it were planned, a group of these whales were spotted out of the window and the entire population of the observation lounge made their wayto the starboard side to watch the magnificent blows. Ursula finished with a sound recording of finwhale blows, not only could we hear the exhaling of air but the inward breath was also audible. The animated film Happy Feet was shown in the observation lounge after dinner tonight, a relaxing end to a relaxing day.