Montevideo and At Sea
The sun finally came out and we woke up to a beautiful day. The wind had calmed and the port finally opened so we could sail away from Montevideo after the stormy last two days. It was amazing to sail through the extremely muddy waters of the La Playa River.
In the mid-morning we heard our first presentation of the journey by our Global Guest Speaker Captain Jim Lovell. He had everyone in the lounge mesmerized with his account of what happened during the crisis filled Apollo 13 moon mission. It was fantastic to hear details of of the mission and a few fun stories about the making of the Apollo 13 movie too.
After another delicious meal and a bit of quiet time, we heard another exciting presentation by National Geographic photographer Carsten Peter. This time we were amazed by his incredible adventures of lowering himself into active a volcano! His photography was breathtaking and it is hard to imagine what he experienced while taking them.
Just after tea time the sharp eyes on the bridge found two Southern right whales just ahead of the National Geographic Explorer. The two baleen whales were rolling around so we had excellent views of their square shaped flippers and massive heads. The whales are at the end of the calving and breeding season so will start to make their way down to Antarctica during the next several weeks.
The air was filled with hundreds of various seabirds swirling around the whales searching for food. It was a great chance to see black browed albatrosses, our first of the trip. During one surfacing one of the Southern right whales came up right next to the ship and it was a fantastic first sighting and we hope for many more over the next couple of days!
