Second sea day

We are still required to get up early because we have to firstly collect our boots and then take all the outerwear we are likely to be wearing on shore for bio-decontamination checking. There is an option to go kayaking which looks like a really good activity, the threat of being dumped in the water notwithstanding. At the end of the briefing we are tested to see if we have enough agility/flexibility to get in and out of a kayak. Unfortunately Bob knows he can't do it with his artificial knees. I must admit I'm not really disappointed. It wasn't high on my list of things I wanted to do, it did look interesting though unless the weather is bad.

The lecture is given by a young French woman who had studied the albatross for her PhD and although the lecture didn't cover specifics, on the albatross which we expected in general, she did a very good job of explaining how the threats to the albatross were the same threats to humanity. Climate change, pollution, particularly in the ocean, degradation of habitat, particularly from invasive species and fishing. It was a really interesting lecture and very thought-provoking albeit that some passengers were unhappy wanting more on the albatross.

The captain spoke at our afternoon briefing and he and the expedition leader had decided that because the weather was looking particularly bad we would make a detour to avoid the worst of it. That means tomorrow morning, we will begin to sail along the A28a iceberg. This is the largest iceberg in the world it's 400 meters thick and 310 metres tall and 70 x 40 kilometers, it broke away from the Antarctic shelf in 1986. It was stuck in the Weddle sea but is now moving again. The biggest concern for South Georgia is that it might block the penguins path from the island to their feeding grounds.Read more