Moving on

Dates: 3rd Jan - 4th Jan 2011

Sunrise: 4.51am

Sunset: 20.55

After bidding good bye to Falklands, we set sailing east towards South Georgia. It takes 2 full days in open seas to complete this journey from Falklands to S. Georgia. Our experience in Falklands was already quite impressive but we heard from many of the veteran polar travelers "wait till you get to South Georgia". I can imagine south georgia to be a good mix of - land and ice, birds and animals, flora and fauna, etc. In preparation for this trip I had done some reading about South Georgia and it apparently has abundant wildlife due to its unique location. There is abundant phytoplankton around this island that supports krill which in turn supports penguins, albatrosses, whales and seals. I remember in one of the talks, Jamie mentioned that the crap of krill along with that of some whales provide the perfect manure needed for the growth of phytoplanktons. An interesting ecological inter-dependence going on in the southern oceans for ages which has been heavily disturbed due to brutal whaling by humans.

Andy: Yeah, I was sad to hear that the whaling period is the one responsible for me having to keep such an eye open to spot the big animals, otherwise, the oceans would be just filled with them…

The "at sea" days are kind of boring though there are plenty of things happening on board. We have numerous talks on various related topics such as birds of the southern oceans, mammals and history of this region. These talks gave some good tips on bird/animal movements to help us identify them easily. The library on board is very good with nice hand-picked books related to all you want to know about Antarctica, Falklands and South Georgia. The lounge next to the bar has warm drinks 24x7 along with a TV and a good collection of DVDs. We did carry some books and movies for the trip but so far we haven't had a chance to open them. Along with all these options we should not forget all the interesting conversations with fellow passengers, sharing each other's travel experiences and pictures.

Normally there are 4 talks per day each lasting about an hour. The presentation rooms are not big enough to accommodate all of them in a single room and as a result each talk is presented twice. The people on the left (port) side of the ship attend one talk while those on the right (starboard) side attend the other. They switch rooms after the talks are over. A typical "at sea" day is as follows:

- wake up call at 7.30am

- breakfast at 8am

- talk 1 at 10am

- talk 2 at 11am

- lunch at 1pm

- talk 3 at 3pm

- talk 4 at 5pm

- happy hour at 6.30pm

- dinner at 7.30pm

- movie at 9.15pm

Jamie presented a talk on "River of Krill", Pat presented 2 talks about birds in Falklands and southern oceans, Jimmy talked about whales and marine mammals, Damien talked about history of Falklands and Lynn presented a primer on south georgia. The talks were very informative and the presenters always welcomed questions from those passengers who are enthusiastic to learn more. I made it a point to attend all the talks on birds and conveniently skipped those about history of the region. The weather has been constant over the past 2 days since we left Stanley - very cloudy and foggy with a visibility range of about 30m. The sea is starting to get rough and for the first time I felt a little bit of sea sickness this afternoon. Just to be safe I avoided the lunch and took an anti-sea-sickness pill which caused drowsiness and guess what I did all of the afternoon? The pill worked great and I was back to normal by evening. We even dined over some Malbec wine that we had picked up in Ushuaia. We watched a documentary movie "Endurance" which narrates the story of Shackleton with real pictures and videos taken by Frank Hurley during this famous and ambitious journey taken by Shackleton with 27 member crew to cross the Antarctic continent for the first time in 1914. The next day morning we were informed that we have crossed the "Antarctic convergence" which is an imaginary circle around Antarctica. Within the convergence the sea water temperatures drop by about 4C and the terms of the Antarctic treaty come into effect. This is also the region with abundant sea life though we haven't been able to see a lot due to the foggy conditions.

Link to photo album