South America and Antarctica

Things are rocking and rolling now! It's actually a relatively gentle rock, but it's certainly noticeable as one tries to navigate the ship. This morning I woke up to whales outside my balcony! They were pretty far out, but the spouts are unmistakable. I ran up the aft deck and enjoyed seeing quite a few "blows." No pictures as they were too far and happen way too fast.

After the whales were out of sight, I did try to practice getting some photos of moving birds. I wasn't satisfied with my bird pictures from Puerto Madryn and there were a couple Northern Giant Petrels putting on quite an aerobatic show for us. It's good to practice on low stakes stuff, because I am rubbish at moving subjects yet. Fun fact about the petrels, they drink salt water and have a special gland in their head that cleans it out of their blood and the excrete it through holes on the top of their beak.

Then it was off to learn about the Falkland Islands, also known as the Islas Malvinas. There is some bad blood about these islands between Argentina and Great Britain so we have been advised (strongly and often) not to wear Argentinian flags or colors or try to pay with pesos while on the island. (Same advise in reverse was given to us for Puerto Madryn, no union jacks, no GBP etc.) In the afternoon, we had the second of 4 Spanish lessons where I continue to find it impossible to roll my r's when preceded by a vowel. I do ok with 'gr' or 'br' but 'ar' is really tough. We had a presentation with the expedition team about the different whale species we might see closer to Antarctica.

A little trivia with the officers closed out the evening and now I am off to sleep since we arrive in Stanley very early tomorrow and I plan to be on the bow to see the approach. The daylight hours are already appreciably longer!Lue lisää