RWSE Day 4: @ Sea to SGI

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” ~~ St Augustine ~~ (from the Daily Program)

Sighted our first icebergs of the voyage today! Many, many more to come.

The Scotia Sea, on this third day of our crossing from the tip of South America to South Georgia Island, was calmer. Those conditions prevailed throughout the day.

Presentations and lectures continues — “An Introduction to Penguins” … “History of Whaling in the Southern Ocean” … “Pray for Shackleton.” In the latter lecture, Tennessee jumped ahead to the ImperialTrans-Antarctic Expedition (aka the Endurance Expedition) since our itinerary will essentially be following a similar route through the Weddell Sea … without getting beset in the ice 🤞🏻

Much of our afternoon was taken up with the mandatory biosecurity inspection required by South Georgia. We cleaned — including vacuuming pockets and such — all of our outer gear, and the expedition team inspected our work … just as the SGI authorities will be inspecting their work on arrival in Grytviken. We will get another chance to practice tomorrow since we will be landing on SGI before the official inspection.

Daily recap and dinner were moved up in anticipation of our first land sighting since departing Ushuaia on 11 February.

Sara briefed us on tomorrow’s landing location and weather/sea conditions … both look great. Expedition members then gave us their recap snippets — Gary talked about the ‘divorce rate’ amongst penguins … shattering the myth that they are primarily monogamous; in honor of Valentine’s Day, Tennessee talked about an explorer named D’Urville claiming land in Antarctica for King and Country … and naming it, as well as a penguin species, after his wife, Adélie; Claudio shared with us a screenshot from the Vessel Finder app that showed fishing vessels (transponders off = likely illegal fishing) around sub-Antarctic Islands and a fish processing vessel identified as a cargo vessel.

And then … land ahoy!Читать далее