The Drake Passage and the plural of Albatross?
18th March, the Drake Passage.
After the calm of the Beagle Channel the previous evening, we awoke rolling from one side of our bunks to the other. Welcome to the Drake Passage!
Staggering between the walls of the corridors, a slightly reduced number of our group made it to the dining room, however breakfast was an interesting affair! Balancing heavily laden plates of delicious homemade pain au chocolat, whilst navigating the numerous tables in the dining room, was not easy! The unsecured chairs also posed a problem, each waved gradually sliding us away from our plates and fellow passengers!
Despite this, with full bellies, we were soon eagerly scanning the horizon from the bridge wings. Given that only yesterday we were mistaking aeroplanes for albatrosses (or should the plural of albatross be albatri?!), mind-bogglingly, by the end of the day we had progressed to differentiating between blue petrels and prions! Glimpses of the majestic wandering albatross, with its hugely impressive wingspan (up to 3.55m), only added to our amazement.
The 3-4m swell however, made marine mammals particularly challenging to spot. The shout of “sighting” across the radio after lunch therefore, got everyone thoroughly excited! A group of four beautiful Hourglass dolphins leapt between the waves beside the ship, darting in and out of view, capturing our hearts, but sneakily evading our cameras!
A possible sighting of Southern bottlenose whales a few hours later, much to the annoyance of Clair – our token beaked whale fanatic – who missed it, maintained our enthusiasm until the setting sun (and the smell of dinner) prevented further surveys.
An evening of data collation, testing our long-forgotten maths skills to convert latitude and longitude positions from minutes to degrees, was particularly challenging after such a long day! The seasickness tablets seemed to have affected our tired brains somewhat – the phrase “We’re on so much medication!” was frequently deemed a valid excuse for messing up our calculations… I’m not sure Sonja and Lars bought it!
(written by Jo Goodfellow)
Sounds like an adventure of a lifetime. The stories will grow with time! Enjoy!