Overnight we left the sheltered waters of the Beagle Channel and headed into the “dreaded” Drake Passage. Yet when we woke up, the seas were not that dreadful after all and more like the Drake Lake. There was enough wind to have several majestic wandering albatrosses soaring around the ship.
Throughout the day, there were various presentations to introduce us to some of the wildlife we will see. Stefan Lundgren brilliantly told us all about the albatrosses and the various petrels that we saw all morning. After his talk, we went out onto the sun deck and worked with the photo team to try to take photos of the birds as they flew close to the ship.
A day at sea is also chance to scan the horizon and look for marine wildlife. We are fortunate enough to have two expert killer whale researchers, Bob Pitman and John Durban, with us this trip and they spend hours staring at the sea looking for whales. Even Captain Oliver Kruess, who is also an excellent wildlife spotter, joined in the search today!
Later on we joined the photo team again in the lounge for an overview on how to use our cameras and then broke into small groups to have more one-on-one time with the photo instructors. The last presentation of the day was by Doug Gualtieri who gave a great overview of the penguins we hope to see this trip.
Since the conditions were nice and calm, Captain Kruess hosted us in the lounge for his welcome cocktail party. He told us about the open bridge policy and introduced us to the ship’s officers. We then had a delicious dinner, looking forward to our first day in Antarctica tomorrow.
