Sea day with the big birds :)

After a calm night of sleep, I woke up in my floating hotel room. 🤩
A very nice breakfast with the captain and the head of engineering followed, where we evaluated the state of business and discussed hopes for the coming seasons. Afterward, we did a bit of bird spotting from the ship while enjoying the slow and calm rolling of the sea as we headed toward the Falklands.

Most of the day, we were sailing through foggy weather. If we are to have foggy days, this is the perfect part of the journey for it, as the smaller and medium-sized icebergs don’t always show on the radar. They also make a rather unsatisfying noise when we hit them at 13 knots (24 km/h), though in this part of the journey, we seldom encounter these smaller icebergs.

All day, the same birds followed us: Southern Giant Petrels and the smaller White-Chinned Petrels. Both species wait for the vessel’s rotors to stir up some food from the ocean for them, all while observing the strange “animals” taking photos of them. 😁
The Southern Giant Petrel is not a pretty bird, but it’s massive, with a wingspan between 185–205 cm. Locals call them “stinkers” or “garbage men” because they love feasting on dead animals.

This full day at sea has been packed with Zodiac briefings, team presentations, kayak briefings, smartphone photo training sessions, and finally a briefing about the plans for tomorrow’s landings in the Falklands, followed by the captain’s welcome.

After a delicious dinner, the weather cleared up, and we got some evening sun and blue skies, along with our first glimpse of the Black-browed Albatross. I didn’t manage to get a great first picture of this majestic bird, but I had time to admire its beauty. We will see many more of them tomorrow, but seeing it for the first time was special. It isn’t the largest Albatross, but with a wingspan up to 240 cm, it’s still bigger than the average bird in the sky.

Tomorrow, we have the first landings, hikes, and Zodiac cruises! Now, a bit of sleep before an early morning start. 😴Meer informatie