Sea Day no. 2 – 16 March

A delightful sleep. We are all weary and falling asleep in lectures etc, so it was needed.

Awoke to a very calm rolling sea, on the ships front camera there was a bit of sunrise colour so I threw on some clothes and went wandering. Found the last bit of ship I hadn’t seen which was the bow on level 7 – where you can see into the bridge. Aurora have an open bridge policy but due to COVID it’s closed to keep the crew safe. Took my shots and came back via crew only area.

Heading south – very few birds as there is not enough wind.

In order to avoid wind and weather we are now heading South to cross the Antarctic circle and head into the Peninsula via a path called “The Gullet” via Martha strait. So far the conditions are far calmer, and we think it means more a sea day today than if we’d gone into the Antarctic Peninsula higher up.

The Daily Plan was posted last night, so a couple more lectures to learn today.

Breakfast spread is too good. Hard to limit the intake with so many delicious choices.

After breaky off to our first lecture – A beginner’s guide to seabirds – Vicky Inglis

“Everyone likes birds, What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?” David Attenborough

Did you know:

birds use parts of their skeleton for breathing?

Seabirds number only 360 out of 10000 species.

Some albatross live to 80 or 90.

54 species of sea gulls

40 species of terns

55 species of tube nosed birds (petrels)

Storm petrel weighs 40 g. The smallest warm blooded creature In Antarctica.

22 species of Albatross. 15 are threatened and 2 endangered.

Penguins have traded the ability to fly to rocket through the water at up to 30km a hour.

18 species. 5 in -Antarctica- we might see four.

Albatross:

can lock out their wings.

Foraging flights can be 8000kms over 8 days.

The snowy sheath bill is the only bird down here without webbed feet. They clean up behind others.

Outside to explore a bit more, getting cooler. However need the cool down as the lecture theatre is quite hot.

Then in for a hot chocolate and to watch the world go by.

The food is fabulous, it’s too hard to decide what to have. We are giving it a good crack.

Rocks of the Antarctic 101. – with Steph. Some facts

The Antarctic ice sheet 14 million square kms. 4 x the size of Australia.

West Antarctic is a bunch of islands connected by ice.

Steph did an excellent job of bringing rocks to life. Her passion for geology was evident and she presented a really engaging lecture including a short clip featuring Scrat from Ice Age.

After that we went to our room to do some photo downloading. I had read somewhere that Captains Suite minibar is complimentary all trip and Junior Suiten

Introduction to Expedition Photography by Max Seagal.

Use the histogram

High APERTURE to get sun stars.

Night time.

Moon is a dramatic impact on ISO

NO MOON – 6400 ISO and low aperture

With a full moon cut back to 400.

Exposure compensation mode. Use to make adjustments with tricky light

Focus modes

In auto mode it’s prob full screen.

P mode – auto with control of little things, like focus changing , exposure compensation,

Drake Passage with Stephi

Antarctica is heaven but you have to die to get there..

The fetch of the Southern Ocean is infinite (fetch is distance wind blows)

Citizen Science Program with Julia

Happy whale -‘photos of whales captured and submitted to happy whale

We might see whales:

Southern Right

Sei

Humpback

Fin

Blue

Orca

Seals

Weddell

Leopard

HOWARD -precap of 17th

Drake has been kind to us and tomorrow it won’t be so good but we are done.

Tomorrow on the 17th we will cross the circle between 4.45am ish.

Martha strait

Then through The Gullet.

Breaky at 7am. The be out to do the gullet. Visually speccy.

Then gunning it through to Horseshoe Island which houses an original UK base.

Toast to circle at 11.30, lunch at 12 then Zodiacs in to visit the base and walk.

Dinner tonight had some excitement, the ship suddenly listed and things flew off tables and things crashed in the kitchen. We all got up and raced out the back expecting an iceberg- it was cold and there is snow on the zodiacs but nothing to see on the water. Howard then announced that we changed course quickly to avoid a whale.

We had a drink or two, then headed up for showers and to get our gear ready for first landing tomorrow.